Page 171 - Arabiab Studies (IV)
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The Omani Manuscript Collection at

                                Muscat

                                 PARTI


                 A General Description of the MSS

                              G. R. Smith


        The writer was invited to spend a short time in Muscat during
        October 1976. The kind and generous invitation to go there to
        examine some recently collected Arabic manuscripts was extended
        by the Minister of National Heritage of the Sultanate of Oman,
        His Excellency Sayyid Fay$al b. ‘All A1 Sa‘id. His Excellency is
        continuing in this new ministry the previously established policy of
        the Sultanate to collect wherever possible examples of Oman’s rich
        cultural heritage, including the abundant Arabic manuscript
        material which exists throughout the country. Pending the creation
        of a National Museum and Library, these treasures are to be
        housed in the Ministry itself. The present writer wishes to record
        here his thanks to His Excellency Sayyid Fay$al for affording him
        the opportunity to visit Oman, to study the manuscripts and
        photograph them in preparation for this study. The writer’s
        gratitude is also extended to other scholars who were in Oman at
        the same time and who assisted in a number of ways his study of
        the manuscripts: Professors C. F. Beckingham, T. M. Johnstone
        and R. B. Seijeant, Dr R. L. Bidwell and Mr Y. H. Safadi. Special
        thanks are due to Dr J. C. Wilkinson, who was also kind enough to
        agree to add his own notes to these descriptions and who has
        written Part II of this study. Dr Wilkinson’s notes in Part I are
        prefaced by the initials J. C. W. and are contained in brackets.
          A number of agonising decisions regarding the Omani manu­
        scripts and how they could best be announced to the world of
        scholarship had to be faced in Muscat. Time was short, very short,
        and where was one to start, faced with almost 2,000 manuscripts
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