Remembering the Shelves: A History of Endowment and Archival Practice in the Great Mosque Library of Kairouan until the 20th Century (An Analytical Approach to Civilizational Meanings and Institutional Dimensions)

Abstract

Within the ancient parchments and upon the shelves of Kairouan's impregnable repository, the echoes of scholarly circles still resonate and the testaments of endowers are renewed. This study transcends the traditional cataloging approach, which stops at the inventory of treasures, to delve into the memory of the shelves itself, interrogating the silent documents that recorded the history of its organization and preservation. Employing an archival-archaeological methodology, this research argues that the secret to the library’s endurance lies not merely in the sanctity of its location, but in a creative dialectic between two complementary practices: the socio-religious custom of endowment (taḥbīs) that nourished the collection, and the bureaucratic-legal craft of the inventory (jard) that protected it. Through the analysis of deeds (rusūm) and registers, the research transforms a simple record of holdings into a testament to the shifts in consciousness regarding the value of the book, tracing its transition from a sacred trust to a scientific object with precise material descriptions. The study concludes that these documents reveal not just the history of a library, but a sophisticated culture of preservation (thaqāfat al-ḥifẓ) with legal, administrative, and artistic dimensions. This represents an authentic civilizational contribution to the history of knowledge organization and offers a rich historical model for understanding the infrastructure that underpinned intellectual life in the Islamic world.