Double barreled shotguns in exchange for rare manuscripts

Those who study the question of how European manuscript collectors operated in the Arab world and who helped them gather the coveted sources rarely find reliable first-hand information on the subject. The business practices and prices paid were usually "trade secrets" that people preferred to keep to themselves.

In the case of Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815-1905), things were different. From the preserved acquisition documentation and other sources, we can learn a number of things about his trading activities in Syria. Some of them will be highlighted in this article.

From 1849 to 1861, the Saxon orientalist Wetzstein stayed in Damascus as the first Prussian consul. During his stay, he succeeded in gathering important information about Syria, especially of an ethnographic nature, which he published, for example, in the report "Der Markt in Damaskus" or the "Reisebericht über Hauran und die Trachonen".

His most lasting contribution to the emerging field of Oriental studies, however, was the mediation of Arabic manuscript collections to Germany. Through Wetzstein's mediated purchase of the Rifāʿīya library, the University of Leipzig (1853) preserves the only private library from Ottoman Damascus that is fully preserved until today.

The Wetzstein collections in Berlin (acquired in 1851 and 1861; 2,250 volumes) and Tübingen (acquired in 1864; 171 volumes) contain indispensable sources for the study of Islamic sciences and Arabic literature.

When Wetzstein first came to Berlin on home leave in 1851, he already brought a collection with him, to which he enclosed not only an inventory but also a detailed report on the circumstances of its acquisition. He wrote his report primarily with the intention of convincing the Prussian state of the value of his literary treasures and to persuade the decision-makers in Berlin to make a rapid purchase.

As honorary consul, Wetzstein had no fixed salary and was virtually dependent on additional income. Although Damascus was the only place, Wetzstein said, where old Arabic writings could still be found, competition from European travelers and American missionaries was fierce. It is very difficult and requires a great deal of time and expertise to obtain rare texts, he says.

The educated Arabs, Wetzstein writes, were reluctant to sell manuscripts, and the out-sale of their own lore was perceived as a bitter loss by the local educated elite:

"What can man do against the power of money?" quotes Wetzstein his friend, the Damascene foundation administrator and later mufti of the city Maḥmūd Ḥamza (1820/21-1887/88):

Like in Europe, book auctions in Damascus offered welcome opportunities for the favorable acquisition of manuscripts. However, it was much more difficult for the book collector Wetzstein to buy individual manuscripts from private individuals for money. The Muslim citizens of the city were keen to prevent the writings of their co-religionists from falling into the hands of Christians:

Only an elderly sheikh, called al-Ǧamal al-Miṣrī, an old-aged antiquities dealer, traded manuscripts with Wetzstein in Damascus for money. His name was originally Aḥmad. Since he was from Egypt and was usually seen with a book bag on his back, he was nicknamed "the camel."

Aḥmad regularly visited Wetzstein after dark. For each book he offered, he received one piaster. In this way, Wetzstein secured the right of first purchase. To prevent the same book from being offered to him more than once, he put a black stamp on all the books he consulted. The approximately 200 manuscripts that he brought to Berlin in 1851 he had selected from several thousand manuscripts, as can be seen from an inventory.

Mainly because of his dealings with this merchant, Wetzstein says, he moved his residence from the Christian to the Turkish quarter of Damascus.

Wetzstein said that Aḥmad was too much antagonized by his fellow believers when he entered the Christian quarter.

In general, the trade in manuscripts with Europeans was viewed with great suspicion by the Muslims and was accompanied by hostility. Sheikh Aḥmad ended up in prison several times, from which Wetzstein was able to free him again thanks to his good contacts. With his book bag, Aḥmad even tracked down his German client during his summer retreat in the Anti-Lebanon.¹

Wetzstein was aware that many of the books offered to him came from mosques and madrasas or had been manipulated by Sheikh Aḥmad, for example by removing endowment notes or falsifying titles and author information. He was convinced, however, that the books on offer were not stolen-even the old merchant's greatest enemies would not claim this.

Wetzstein describes his trading partner very vividly and with a certain kindness. Since he wrote the account quoted here with the intention of emphasizing the value of his collection, not every detail must be entirely true.

But overall it confirms his ability to present a factual, nuanced, and often insightful picture of various aspects of Arab culture. Like many of his Orientalist contemporaries, however, Wetzstein saw the decline of traditional Arab-Islamic education as an irreversible process.

His close contacts with Damascus scholars are probably the reason why Wetzstein was presumably the first European to learn about the Qur'an fragments stored in the so-called treasure house of the Umayyad mosque (Qubbat al-ḫazna).

The Berlin orientalist Julius Heinrich Petermann (1801-1876) traveled to Damascus together with Wetzstein after the latter's home leave, where he was drawn by the "prospect of significant litterary spoils." The Prussian Ministry of Culture financed the trip and provided him with funds for the acquisition of manuscripts and antiquities. On November 2, 1852, Petermann reported to the Royal Library in Berlin:

The Berlin head librarian Pertz asked Petermann to do everything possible to obtain these manuscripts, which was not possible for him on a larger scale due to his comparatively short stay. Later, however, Wetzstein himself sold Quran fragments from this source to Berlin and Tübingen.

Other pieces found their way to Europe through other channels - the majority of the Damascus Quran fragments are now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Istanbul.

Wetzstein was very interested in contemporary Arabic and the popular literature of public storytellers. The Berlin collection contains about 700 volumes that can be assigned to the so-called heroic epics, a partial collection that is currently being completely digitized. Some of the volumes contain annotations and corrections in his own hand, because, as he wrote in a letter to Richard Lepsius, he had spent many evenings in Damascus reading these works.

He also maintained contacts with public storytellers. One, a certain Dervish Raǧab, accompanied Wetzstein on his research trip to Hauran in 1858:

Raǧab also sold Wetzstein manuscripts from his possession, such as a multi-volume copy of the Sīrat al-Malik Baybars (Wetzstein II 562-586). These 25 volumes once belonged to Aḥmad al-Rabbāṭ, a Syrian storyteller and book lender. Books by Rabbāṭ could be identified in numerous libraries. Perhaps other volumes from the library of this well-known book loaner also reached Wetzstein via the storyteller Raǧab.

We owe all this information to owner entries found on the first leaves of the manuscripts. These, too, can be important clues for tracing the path the books took before they reached German libraries.

Without the cooperation and support of local dealers and knowledgeable intermediaries, orientalists would not have been able to acquire manuscripts on this scale and assemble them into first-rate collections. It is important to take these actors more into account when considering trade activities.

by Christoph Rauch