EAP1216/3

The El Trouk Mosque was founded in the 16th century. The library, however, was compiled from the contents of several libraries on the island by the Frnech colonial government in the first few decades of the 20th century.

Extent: 168 items comprising 82 manuscript volumes (bound and unbound); 85 printed volumes.

Condition of original material: These responses were based on comparison of the original item with images of items in different conditions.

Custodial history: The El Trouk Mosque library came together at the beginning of the 20th century, consolidating a few different collections on the island. A large portion of the manuscript books appear to have come from a nearby religious school (zāwiya) known as Zāwiyat Abī Ḥajar. Other titles came to the mosque from the local office of religious endowments (niāba). In some other cases, the books may have come from private collections, although these were relatively few in number. The EAP1216 team has compiled a file of archival documents related to the collection's provenance, which we will be comparing with the collection's content following the completion of the digitisation and inventory.

Arrangement: The original shelf marks are based on a list of books in the collection found by the EAP1216 team in the Tunisian National Archives. In some cases, the volumes in the collection still bear that shelf mark while in other cases the original paper bearing the mark has fall off or been lost. In those cases, we based the original shelf mark on the title and author, which we matched to the original handlist from the archives. In some cases, we were not certain and so we added a [?] after the shelf mark or title. In other cases, multiple volumes bore the same shelf mark and so we added an addition number in square brackets to distinguish them from one another.

Related place note: Some items in the collection were produced locally while others were produced outside of Djerba, including in places like Cairo, Istanbul, Algiers, or Tunis. In most cases, however, it is difficult to be certain of this. Since all materials are currently located in Djerba, Tunisia is given as the default on the file level. Since all materials are current located in Houmet Souk, Djerba, this is given as the default.

Date range note: When the date was unknown, the range 18th-19th century was used for manuscript volumes, since this represents the majority of items in the collection. Alternative calendar and date: Alternative Hijri (Islamic) calendar dates were only given when specifically mentioned. In case of ranges, their equivalents in the Hijri calendar are not provided.

Author(s)/Creator(s): The names of authors are based on two sources: (1) the original handlist(s) on which the shelf marks are based; (2) the document itself, if the author identifies himself/herself by name.

Scribe(s): In cases where the opyist of the manuscript appears in the text, it is noted. Otherwise, the default is unknown. "Various" refers to composite manuscript volumes for which there are three or more authors, whose names may or may not be identified.