Oriental Manuscripts
The total collection of around 3,500 Oriental manuscripts comes from two collections: the University Library’s holdings and the deposit of the Leipzig Municipal Library, which is now located in the University Library. The entire collection was cataloged and digitized in various projects funded by the DFG.
In 1962, the University Library acquired 376 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts from the Leipzig Municipal Library as a deposit. These manuscripts largely come from three scholar’s libraries: the collections of Andreas Acoluth (1654–1704), Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633–1705), and August Pfeiffer (1640–1698). All three collections were acquired by the Leipzig City Council in the years around 1700 and were incorporated into the Municipal Library.
The manuscripts in the University Library’s holdings come from different provenances. Around 400 manuscripts were mainly acquired as gifts in the 19th and 20th centuries. Between 1925 and 1931, 301 manuscripts were acquired from the Orientalist Oskar Rescher (1883–1972) in Istanbul. In 1965, the University Library acquired 51 manuscripts from the collections of the Leipzig Sinologist and Linguist Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz (1840–1893). In 2003, 17 manuscripts from the estate of the Iranist and Orientalist Wilhelm Eilers (1906–1989) were acquired by the University Library. The most significant part of the collection is the 488 manuscripts from the family library Refaiya from Damascus, which were acquired by the Saxon State in 1853 for the University Library.