Arabic Texts in Special Collections & Archives

by Gayle O’Hara, University Archivist - November 17, 2026

CSUN’s Special Collections & Archives (SCA) is fortunate to hold many rare books, including original texts in Arabic as well as texts translated into both Latin and English from Arabic. The time between the 7th and 13th centuries marks a particularly fertile period where culture, learning, and contributions to the world from Arabic-speaking countries flourished. The numeric system still used today, core chemistry processes, algebra, hospitals, surgical instruments, universities, and other concepts and processes that we take for granted all originated in or were advanced by the Arabic-speaking world. 

In addition, thanks to trade routes and the thirst for knowledge, there was cross pollination between Arab-speaking, predominantly Islamic countries and the predominantly Christian countries of Europe. The text Iulij Firmici Materni Iunioris Siculi V.C. ad Mauortium Lollianum, Astronomicōn libri VIII from 1551, published in Basel, Switzerland, is an example of this. This edition was edited and amended by German astrologer and mathematician Nicolaus Prugner from the earlier manuscripts of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a 4th-century astrologer from Sicily. This 1551 edition also contains translations from Arabic into Latin representing the foundations of medieval Islamic astrology, which reshaped how Renaissance practitioners interpreted charts and synthesized traditions from multiple cultures. At that time, astrology and astronomy were deeply entwined. Practices and theories put forth by Arabic-speaking countries revolutionized how European universities approached science. One of the contributors is Sahl ibn Bišr, a Jewish-Arabic astrologer active in Baghdad in the 9th century who was held in high esteem for what was known as “elections”, which used charting to pick the most favorable time to begin an endeavor. Another contributor is Masha’allah ibn Athari, an 8th-century Persian-Jewish astrologer who focused on interpreting eclipses and other phenomena to predict societal changes. SCA’s copy includes marginalia, which are notes and comments written in the margins of manuscripts; we don’t know who wrote them, but it adds to the rarity of this fabled edition.

SCA also holds multiple editions of the Koran or Qur’an, the central religious text of Islam; Muslims believes that this is the word of God (Allah). SCA’s The Koran : commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed was translated from Arabic into English by George Sale, a British translator. Sale first translated the Koran from the original Arabic in 1734; the 1850 edition held by SCA includes Sale’s memoir and comparative readings from Claude-Étienne Savary’s French translation. Translation is an iterative process, and it is important to be aware of the influence of cultural bias when translating a text from another language and from a society whose traditions and ways of life are very different. For example, George Sale, despite a deep and abiding interest in the Middle East, never traveled to an Arabic-speaking country. He studied Arabic while living and working in London, England.

In addition to rare Arabic texts, SCA holds the Wilfred Cantwell Smith Papers. Cantwell Smith was a Canadian scholar on Islam and comparative religion. He founded the Institute for Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal in 1951 and helped establish the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University as well as the Department of Comparative Religion at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. This archival collection holds correspondence, journal articles, lecture notes, pamphlets, and other materials documenting his work and study of both ancient and contemporary Islamic scholars. 

We often assume that the global sharing of information is unique to our time. While the rapidity with which we can travel, learn, and share knowledge is new, the hunger for it is not. For centuries, scholars, travelers and traders have interacted with other cultures, providing for the rich cross-fertilization of ideas. What is known as the Western world would not be what it is today if not for the sharing of concepts and practices from the Arabic-speaking world. Those traditions continue into the present, with Arabic doctors, scholars and authors contributing to major breakthroughs in chemistry and medicine, world literature, and much more. 
 

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Post tagged as: special collections, rare books, international