Arabic documents

Evidence

"hundreds of Arabic documents. Unfortunately, most of them had been vandalised, leaving mere fragments, some of them so eaten away by insects and humidity that they disintegrated at the slightest touch. They were often missing the first and last pages as well as large chunks of text"

Remarks

The author discusses the physical state of a large corpus of Arabic manuscripts discovered by R. S. O’Fahey within the Zanzibar National Archives. The collection, which covers 150 years of rule by the Omani dynasty, suffered from severe neglect and environmental damage. The humidity of the region and infestation by insects have compromised the structural integrity of the paper support to the point where fragments 'disintegrated at the slightest touch' (p. 75). This extreme brittle state and the resulting fragmentation have led to the loss of identifying data, such as titles and author names, typically found on the initial or final pages of the codices (p. 75).