Visiting the Iconic Tafsīr Manuscript that George Sale Used

I went on a quick trip to the UK to check out a manuscript in the London Archives. Not just any manuscript, it’s the tafsīr of al-Bayḍāwī that George Sale used when he made his famous English translation of the Qur’ān back in 1734. I had to blur it out in the image due to copyright.

The manuscript was originally copied in Istanbul in 1581, made its way to London through a trader in 1633, and ended up in the Dutch Church library, where Sale eventually found it nearly a century later.

After a long wait, I finally got to see it in person and photograph the whole volume. It’s about 1170 folios, so it took a few hours, but it was necessary for me. This manuscript is at the heart of my PhD project, which looks at how Sale actually used this very manuscript of al-Bayḍāwī’s tafsīr.

There’s just something surreal about holding a 444-year-old manuscript in your hands. You notice things no printed edition can give you like scribbled marginalia and worn corners, the feeling of history literally in your fingertips. During my MA in Madinah I didn’t get to do hands-on manuscript work since I went for a thematic topic. But later I found out there are thousands of Arabic manuscripts sitting in European libraries and archives, waiting to be explored. Now I’m finally getting the chance.