Islamic Literacy and the Politics of Canon
Revisiting Yemeni Manuscript Traditions

Project by

Valentina Sagaria Rossi
Senior Fellow 2025–2026

This project examines how modern Western Orientalism shaped—and at times narrowed—the study of Yemeni textual cultures in the ninth to twentieth centuries. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly frameworks influenced how manuscripts were catalogued, classified, and interpreted, defining what counted as authoritative or canonical. By revisiting these categories, the project seeks to recover the internal dynamics of Yemeni scholarship, including its reading practices, intellectual networks, and concepts of authority.

Focusing on manuscript texts in Arabic script, the research analyzes marginal notes, paratexts, and scholarly correspondence to reconstruct modes of literacy and knowledge transmission. A second axis explores how literary canons were formed, why certain works became central while others were marginalized, and how political, social, and material factors shaped these processes. By combining philology, manuscript studies, and digital tools, the project offers a critical reassessment of Yemeni textual heritage and contributes to broader debates on canon formation and the historiography of knowledge.