Manuscripts are a source of knowledge

An international roundtable discussion on the topic “Manuscript copies of the works of Movarounnahr Muhaddiths kept in Algeria” was held at Imam Bukhari International Scientific Research Center. Scientific staff of the Center, scientists from Algeria, France, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey took part in it.
In Algeria, there are many thousands of manuscripts that are worth researching, among which there are many written by Movarounnahr muhaddiths. The professor of Adror University in Algeria, Mohamed Jirodi, spoke about this in detail in his lecture on the topic of “Research on Islamic manuscripts in Algerian universities and research centers”.

In this country, attention was paid to the field of manuscripts in the 60s of the last century, after the state’s independence was achieved, and today, the study of sources in cross-section of periods has been started. At the same time, the scientist provided information about the preservation of manuscripts and the legal norms related to the field. According to the professor, the manuscripts in Algeria are being researched by experts as well as graduate students. In this, the mentor-student tradition is given a lot of space, that is, a system of introducing each young researcher to the work done has been established. Factors such as cooperation with foreign countries, active participation in international events and training abroad are very useful in the field of studying manuscripts.

The speaker noted the need for cooperation based on joint projects and grants to determine the number of existing manuscripts in Algeria. In particular, in cooperation with Uzbek researchers, he noted that the prospect of work such as sorting out a large number of works by Movarounnahr scholars and creating their catalog is bright.

During the roundtable discussion, Mrs. Marie Efthymiou, a representative of the “Collège de France” educational and research institution in Paris, a doctor of philology and history, a laureate of the Imam Bukhari international scholarship, gave a lecture on the topic “Layout of medical manuscript pages”. Speaking about the field of codicology, the scientist noted that it is surprising that the recently discovered medical manuscript of the 11th century provides information about the structure of human internal organs. According to the researcher, sources of medical science appeared earlier in Movarounnahr than in other places. They are distinguished by their unique stylistics, and are valuable because they depict diagrams, images of body parts, as well as properties of drugs, symptoms of various diseases, and ways of treatment.

At the roundtable discussion, the lectures of Derya Idikurt, researcher of Manas University of Kyrgyzstan-Turkey, on the topic of “Pilgrimage routes of Central Asian Hojies” and Barot Amonov, researcher of Imam Bukhari International Scientific Research Center, on the topic of “Researches in the field of hadith science in Uzbekistan” were heard.

The event continued with intense questions and answers and discussions.