The value of old paperJan Just Witkam

Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS)www.janjustwitkam.nl

Leiden Wednesday, April 22, 2015, 18:30 hrs.

Nabil Boustani Auditorium, American University of Beirut A lecture co-organized by the Nima Jafet Library, AUB, and The Islamic Manuscript Association,

Cambridge. Sharia al-Falaki, Cairo, 7 April 2015

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray.

Source: Srikanth An, ‘15 Eye Opening Quotes By Business Magnate Warren Buffett’, in: Shoutmeloud, 30 December 2014

I asked a friend on the value of old paper. He answered:

‘The value is in the emotion. Paper itself is powerless and yet it conveys ideas. It is entirely dependent on the outer world as if it were a handicapped person. Yet it is more powerful than you and I.’

‘That is why I cannot be but moved when I have a paper at hand that has survived the centuries. That is because I realize how exceptional this is.’

And there is also a dimension of beauty:

‘In the course of years, people lose much of their beauty, whereas paper with the progress of time only becomes more beautiful.’

The oldest printed book preserved: 868 CE.

The colophon, on the last page of the ‘Diamond Sutra’, a Buddhist text in Chinese, reads: ‘Reverently (caused to be) made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of (his) two parents on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the Xiantong reign’ which is a day in the year 868 CE.

One hundred copies were printed on paper. Making or commissioning multiple copies was a means of gaining merit. Maybe that that aspect has led to the development of printing in China.

The value at the time of printing was in the pious act of distribution. The value of the only copy preserved cannot be expressed in monetary terms: nothing or everything, or something in between.

Source: Frances Wood & Mark Barnard, The Diamond Sutra. The Story of the World’s Earliest Dated Printed Book. London (British Library) 2010, pp. 6-9.

Unhistorical portrait of Cai Lun, who is said to have been the inventor of paper making.

He has some writing utensils in front of him on the table: brushes, paper, container of water. He holds the solid ink in his hand. Source: Voorn, Papiermolens Noord-Holland, plate 1.

Qur’an (text 21:1) on paper, possibly from China. Source: Cairo, DAK, Masahif 118, ff. 1b-2a.

This now closed door was once the entry of the large book binder’s workplace of Master J.J. Labree. In 1953 I was, at my request, pupil there. I was fascinated by the work with paper. Source: Leiden, Langebrug formerly No. 1, photo taken on August 26, 2012.

The past that never comes back, exemplified by a closed wall in a little street in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Source: The great dictator, a film by Charlie Chaplin of 1940, with Charlie Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel and Jack Oakie as Benzino Napaloni. Screenshot: 1:45:15.

After a heated discussion, dictator Adenoid Hynkel (left) decides to sign the treaty that his fellow dictator, Benzino Napaloni, pursues him with. Hynkel is reluctant but he finally signs because his Minister of the Interior Garbitsch has assured him that it is only a piece of paper, and therefore of no value. Not for nothing the symbol of Hynkel’s country is the double cross.

Gérard Lhéritier (Paris, April 2013), is an autodidact book lover and the founder of Aristophil, a bibliophilic investment company. Investors participate in the purchase of important autograph manuscripts and Aristophil guarantees to purchase their participation back from them at a fixed price after a period of five years. An average profit of 8% per year is guaranteed, which adds up to an appreciation of 40%. Aristophil is now under police investigation, which scares away investors. Source: Photo by Marc Chaumeil for Le Monde of 11 December 2014.

One of the treasures of Aristophil, the autograph of the Marquis de Sade’s Les Cent Vingt Journées de Sodome. In 1785, when he had finished his text, the author hid the manuscript, a scroll of 12 m long, in his cell in the Bastille. However, he had to abandon it when he was transferred to another prison and considered it lost forever. Later, after July 14, 1789, it was found in the rubble of the Bastille. Since April 2014 it is in the possession of Aristophil, which tries to increase its value by giving the document conspicuous exposure in exhibitions. Source: Photo Fondation Martin-Bodmer. Source: Michel Delon (ed.), Sade, l’insupportable. Paris 2014.

The prayer book of Queen Marie Antoinette contains an inscription that she wrote on the early morning of the day of her execution. It has become an antiquarian’s darling. All that matters is the story that is constructed around it. After her death it was pinched away by the infamous Robespierre who hid it in his house. He too met his last moment under the guillotine. Even books that stood next to this one on the shelf have highly appreciated in course of time. Source photograph unknown.

The mountain pass Suspiro del Moro, ‘the Moor’s last sigh’, is the place where, in 1492, the last king of Granada looked back at the town from which he was chased away. His mother is said to have remarked at that occasion: ‘Now you weep like a woman about what you could not defend as a man.’

Source: Photo Ernesto Ortega Rodriguez, 2009

Constructing the myth 1

A romantic representation of the Suspiro del Moro, ‘the Moor’s last sigh’, as it may have looked like On January 2, 1492. Did King Abu ‘Abdallah (Boabdil) at the last moment that he saw his town, have a book (manuscript) with him, and if yes, would that have been preserved? A ruthless antiquarian bookseller would develop a myth, a story of provenance, and an offer for sale (with a disclaimer).

Source: Painting by Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921)

Constructing the myth 2

Unhistorical portrait of the Tuanku Imam Bonjol (1796-1864) on the Indonesian 5000 Rp banknote (2001).

This leader of the ‘Padri’-wars made his last stand in Bonjol, Central Sumatra, on August 16, 1837, and was then sent into exile. His prayer book, with texts in Arabic and Malay, and with numerous devotional and magical images, including Mecca and Medina, is now in Leiden University.

Medina and its burial places, here combined from several other icographical elements.

The palms of van Fatima (above), a fence (above), the grave of the Prophet (centre, below), the graves of the four righteous caliphs (left, below). At the right and the centre graves of the family of the Prophet and other saints (orang baik).

An example of sacred geography.

Source: Prayer book of Imam Bonjol, MS Leiden Or. 1751, f. 69b.

Panglima Polim’s purse. War booty, Aceh (Indonesia), August 1898. Itcontains, not money, but a collection of shorter prayers in Arabic andMalay. Source: MS Leiden Or. 8159

Papers from Panglima Polim’s purse. Apart from prayers, it also containedthis list of outstanding debts on Malay. Source: MS Leiden Or. 8159E

A friend of mine owns a very old Arabic manuscript, which his father, in the 1950’s, had purchased in the Yemen. Now my friend wishes to sell it. This did not work out. In his frustration he asked me, why he did not succeed. The manuscript must have great value? he asked. I answered him that the manuscript was a little pile of old paper, and had no value at all. He was horrified. But that is how it is. In order to sell, you need a sellable object, yes, but you much more need a buyer who is both rich and crazy enough to give you a sizeable sum of money for the object that you offer. Value is in the mind of the beholder.

Continuous appreciation 1

This is one page on parchment from a fragment of the Quran (containing in all sura 17:40 -17:110). There is no dating on it, but the fragment is believed to date from the second half of the seventh century or early part of the eight century CE, in the first century of the higra.

The fragments were purchased from an antiques dealer in Beirut by Mr. H.C. Jorissen, Dutch ambassador in Beirut, a carreer diplomat. In May 1979 I purchased the fragments from him on behalf of Leiden University library for a relatively small amount of money.Source: MS Leiden Or. 14.545a, f. 3b

Continuous appreciation 2

On July 23, 2014, Leiden University gave out a press release: ‘Oldest Quran Fragments in Leiden.

The Oriental collections of the Leiden University Libraries preserve a small number of ancient Quran fragments. Thanks to radiocarbon dating we now know that the oldest fragments are from the second half of the seventh century CE, some 30 to 70 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.’Source: MS Leiden Or. 14.545b, recto

Continuous appreciation 3 Source: Photo by Hielco Kuipers for Leidsch Dagblad

On April 20, 2015, the Grand-Mufti of Egypt, Shawqi ‘Allam, visited Leiden University and looked at one of the fragments. At left stands the professor of Arabic (Petra Sijpesteijn), at right the Egyptian ambassador in The Hague, Taher Ahmed Farahat.

The dignitaries look at MS Leiden MS Leiden Or. 14.545a, f. 3b. Mufti ‘Allam points at sura 17, aya 83, which says: ‘And when We bestow favour on man, he turns aside and behaves proudly, and when evil afflicts him, he is despairing.’

Continuous appreciation 4, a short overview

1. In 1974-1979 ambassador H.C. Jorissen buys six leaves of parchment from three different Qur’an manuscripts from an antique’s dealer in Rue Hamra in Beirut.

2. In May 1979 Mr. Jorissen sells the fragments to Leiden University Library for a modest amount of money, possibly more or less the price that he has paid himself. I conclude the deal after the University ethics commission has approved of it.

3. In 2000 I identify one of the fragments as part from the same Qur’an that is partly preserved in the National Library in Paris (Arabe 331).

4. On July 23, 2014 the results of the C-14 analysis make clear that the Leiden fragment (and therefore also the fragments in Paris) are very old, possibly dating from some thirty years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

5. April 2015 the fragments become part of cultural political tourism, with all sorts of ramifications. The perspectives are suddenly endless.

The Maltese priest Giuseppe Vella (1740-1814) was a master counterfeiter of Arabic documents, with which he tried to offer new materials for the history of the Arabs on Sicily.

His falsifications ultimately failed, but his life as a counterfeiter became the subject of a novel by Leonardo Sciascia, that was also translated into Arabic.

Vella cleverly succeeded in playing on the (innate?) vanity of scholars to get his counterfeits recognized as genuine documents.Source image: cover of Leonardo Sciascia, Il Consiglio d’Egitto, Milan 2006 (Adelphi Edizione).

Images: MS Leiden Or. 26.731 (27), verso (loose leaf). Palermo 1789.Olaus Gerhard Tychsen, Elementale Arabicum … Rostock 1792, p. 75

The beginning of a collective volume containing a great number of texts in Arabic about a variety of subjects and all written in a specially designed lay-out.

The opening text has the form of a door with two handles, in which God is invoked as the ‘Opener of doors’.

It is an synthesis of form and content. The manuscript is dated 1146/1733-1734 (p. 207).

Source: MS Beirut, AUB, Khuri 153, p. 3.

The title-page of Tawq al-Hamama, ‘the Ring of the Dove’ by Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi. The manuscript, which is still unique, was copied in 738/1338.

It was discovered by Levinus Warner (d. 1665), Dutch ambassador in Constantinople. After his death it came to the Leiden library, where it still is, now also online.

It is the only witness of this text, and all primary and secondary literature about the young Ibn Hazm and his time depends on this single little book.

Source: MS Leiden Or. 927, f. 1a.

The chapter on correspondence in ‘the Ring of the Dove’ by Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi. A page from the unique manuscript. The poet Ibn Hazm says:‘My love, today I have to destroy your letter… In how many letters there is a death warrant?’ Source: MS Leiden Or. 927, ff. 27b-28a.

The chapter on the singing of the dove (Taghrid al-Hamama) in an ‘Anthology of Arabic poetry’ by Salah al-Din Muhammad al-Suyuti (d. 856/1452), who is not the well-known polymath Galal al-Din al-Suyuti.

It is a rare manuscript which contains numerous quotations from works that now seem lost or at least unavailable to readership.

Source: MS Beirut, AUB, 833, p. 300.

Congratulatory letter by Levinus Warner’s Istanbuli friend, the poet Muhammad al-‘Urdi, on the event that Warner had succeeded in acquiring books from the library of Haggi Khalifa who had died in 1658.

Such letters are rare and interesting exchanges between the world of Islam and the West.

Source: paper in MS Leiden, Or. 1122.

The real value of old paper, if you would sell it in sufficient quantities in the UK, varies from £ 25-45 for ‘mixed paper’ to £ 165-180 for ‘white letter’, per one thousand kilo (indicators in www.letsrecycle.com for March 2015).Source: Photo by Bowen atelier (‘Manhattan’s inhabitants discard enough paper products to fill the Empire State Building every two weeks’), ‘Urban Strategies’, posted September 5, 2013.

The value of old paper

We have come full-circle, but the question that is implicit in the title of this lecture remains unanswered. Is there value in old paper? And if yes, what is it?