Casa Árabe and the Embassy of Slovakia in Madrid have organized, within the framework of the Slovakian Presidency of the European Union Council, a round table discussion titled “Their Heart Is in Your Hands: Collections of Islamic manuscripts in Europe, with the cooperation of Nuria Martínez de Castilla, a specialist in codicology and the history of manuscripts from the Islamic world.

This round table discussion will be devoted to discussing the different journeys and adventures which Arabic and Islamic manuscripts went on until coming to form part of today’s collections in European archives and libraries. In particular, it will deal with the histories of three collections, the Bašagić Collection of Islamic Manuscripts at the Bratislava University Library in Slovakia; the Arabic manuscripts at the University of Leiden Library in Holland, and the Arabic manuscript collection at the Monastery of El Escorial in Spain. During the debate, some of the common problems encountered when determining and recording the history of Islamic manuscripts in Europe will be examined, as well.

The round table discussion will be opened by Miguel Ángel de Frutos, an ambassador and international advisor of Casa Árabe, Vladimír Grácz, the Ambassador of Slovakia in Madrid, and Silvia Stasselová, the General Director of the University Library in Bratislava. After a brief documentary about the Bašagić Collection of Islamic manuscripts, part of UNESCO’S Memory of the World International Register, that collection’s history will be told, as will those of the collections at the University of Leiden and in El Escorial, with contributions by Klára Meszárosová, of the Bratislava University Library, Arnoud Vrolijk, conservator of the University of Leiden Library, and Nuria Martínez de Castilla, of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in a round table discussion moderated by Marek Brieska, from the Slovakian Embassy in Spain.

Related information