Muhammad Ayesh
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Muhammad Ayesh is a contemporary bibliographic researcher known for compiling and editing Fihris al-Makhtutat al-Arabiya fi al-Maktaba al-Wataniya al-Nimsawiya (Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Austrian National Library) .
Scholarly Contribution
Ayesh focused on making Western holdings of Islamic manuscripts accessible to Arabic-speaking researchers . In 1429 AH / 2008 CE, his comprehensive Arabic catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the Austrian National Library in Vienna was published in collaboration with Saqifat al-Safa Trust .
In this work, Ayesh translated into Arabic, merged, and standardized the earlier catalogues that had been produced in German: the three-volume catalogue published between 1865 and 1867 by the German orientalist Gustav Flügel, and the supplementary single-volume catalogue of over 500 Arabic manuscripts published in 1970 by the Austrian scholar Helene Loebenstein . Ayesh standardized the book titles against standard bibliographic references, harmonized author names with their recorded death dates according to biographical literature, transcribed opening incipits, documented physical descriptions such as page counts, copyists, and dates of transcription, cross-referenced titles to aid in locating alternative copies, and provided detailed analytical indices of authors and titles .
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List of Works
Fihris al-Makhtutat al-Arabiya fi al-Maktaba al-Wataniya al-Nimsawiya (Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Austrian National Library) is a specialized bibliographic reference work published in 1429 AH / 2008 CE. It translates, combines, and standardizes entries from earlier German catalogues of the library's Arabic manuscripts into a single Arabic resource to facilitate research and critical editing of Islamic texts.