On 16 March, Kristof D’hulster presented his paper “Language Matters in the Mamluk Sultanate, or what Turkic Had that Arabic and Circassian Did Not” at Wolfson College, Oxford, at the invitation of James White (AMES). The talk was part ...

of the workshop “Comparative Literary Theory in Premodern Asia: Case Studies and Key Terms,” which also provided a valuable opportunity to engage with colleagues working on Sanskrit, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Sumatran and Persian. In addition, he spent two ...

days at the Bodleian Library, where he had fruitful discussions with the curator for the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Ottoman Turkish, Niko Kontovas. This is the link to the workshop poster: www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/c...

Call for Papers: Workshop on Biography and Hagiography in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish From 17–19 February 2027, the workshop “Exemplary Lives in the Pre-Modern Islamic World: Biography and Hagiography in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish”, jointly organised ...

by the Universities of Münster and Bonn, will take place in Bonn. The event will focus on texts often referred to as manāqib/menāḳıb (“virtues” or “outstanding traits”), celebrating the merits and deeds of exemplary individuals or groups. Such works appear ...

n a variety of literary forms, including stand-alone biographies, entries in biographical dictionaries, and chapters within hadith collections and Sufi manuals, and could serve polemical, apologetic, didactic, edifying, or entertaining purposes. The workshop aims ...

to bring together specialists working on a variety of texts to facilitate comparisons across different case studies. The deadline for applications is 30 April 2026. This is the link to the call for papers: www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIsl...

My latest publication as a follow-up to an earlier one: "Nineteen Addenda to a Preliminary Handlist of Manuscripts from the Library of al-Ashraf Qāytbāy," Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2017 (2026): 195-203. One of the tangible results of a great/frustrating research trip to Cairo last year.

Lecture on "Translation as a Cultural Technique" in Kyoto On 30 March, Philip Bockholt presented "Translation as a Cultural Technique" at the Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto, Japan. His lecture dealt with translation practices within the Ottoman Empire, focusing on ...

often overlooked aspects of patronage and adaptation. Hosted by Majid Daneshgar (CSEAS, Kyoto University), Enzio Wetzel (Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa), and Ryosuke Ohashi (Japanisch-Deutsches Kulturinstitut), the event featured ...

fresh perspective on Ottoman socio-culturalhistory. This is the link to the event page: kyoto.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/event/202...

Workshop on the "Power of Patronage" in Tokyo Philip Bockholt participated in the workshop "The Power of Patronage: Translation and Multilingualism in the Ottoman Empire" hosted by the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) at ...

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies on March 23rd. Alongside contributions from Nobuaki Kondo, Osamu Otsuka, Sacha Alsancakli, Nobutaki Nakamachi, and Yui Kanda – featuring presentations on Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Chaghatay Turkish texts from ...

the pre-modern period – Philip Bockholt's research focused on Qāżīzāda-yi Ardabīlī’s sixteenth-century Istanbul translation of Ibn Khallikān’s Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, highlighting the translator's strategies in seeking patronage from Ottoman Sultans Selim I and Süleyman I.

This is the link to the event page: www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/en/events/de... This is the link to the abstracts: ars.aa.tufs.ac.jp/static/uploa...

First Monograph of De Gruyter’s “Empires in Translation” Series Published (Open Access) In the monograph “Türkische Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen und Persischen”—the first volume of the series ...

“Empires in Translation: Intersections of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish in the Eastern Mediterranean”—Philip Bockholt demonstrates that early‑modern Ottoman elites deliberately commissioned Turkish renderings of Arabic and Persian historiographical and advisory texts ...

in order to appropriate the established Islamic scholarly tradition and thereby embed themselves within it. Treating translation as a cultural practice rather than a purely linguistic operation, the study maps the network of translators, patrons, and readers; ...

it documents multiple recensions of the same work and analyses marginalia, colophons, and decorative elements that reveal the production and circulation contexts. By foregrounding the trilingual Ottoman scholarly world (elsine‑i s̱elās̱e—Arabic, Persian, Turkish), ...

the research shows how translation functioned as an instrument of patronage, self‑positioning and imperial consolidation. Consequently, ...

the monograph fills a significant lacuna in Ottoman intellectual history and underscores translation’s central role in early‑modern empire formation. This is the link to the publication: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Discussing Ottoman Translations in Indonesia On 10 March, Tobias Sick held a lecture at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the Indonesian International Islamic University (UIII) in Depok, Indonesia.

In his lecture titled "What’s in a Terceme? On the Study of Ottoman Turkish Literary Translations and Their Manuscript Corpora", he presented the TRANSLAPT approach as well as the findings of his PhD thesis, followed by a discussion with students and faculty dealing with various aspects of ...

Ottoman translation practices. Apart from meeting Zacky Khairul Umam at the UIII, his stay in Indonesia included visits to several other universities, with the aim of meeting experts in the field of Islamic manuscript studies and discussing possible formats of future collaboration with TRANSLAPT.

Universitas Islam Internasional fis.uiii.ac.id

Interview at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”: Arabic–Ottoman Translations of Qur’anic Exegesis Philip Bockholt, project leader within the research project conducted by Ahmet Aytep at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, gave an interview on ...

Arabic–Ottoman translations of works of Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr). The project examines translations from Arabic into Turkish produced between 1400 and 1750 and explores their role in transmitting and transforming religious knowledge in the Ottoman world. ...

Rather than being strictly literal renderings, these texts often included abridgements, expansions, and interpretive adaptations. Focusing on the early Ottoman Turkish translation Enfesü’l-Cevāhir and its Arabic source, the interview highlights ...

how translation made religious scholarship accessible beyond Arabic-speaking scholarly circles and shaped intellectual exchange. www.uni-muenster.de/Religion-und...

Lecture Series on Endowment Notes Concludes The "Endowment Records" lecture series, organised by the FSM Center for Manuscript Studies in collaboration with TRANSLAPT, has successfully concluded. Over the course of 17 engaging sessions, the programme brought together ...

40 participants (25 in-person and 15 online). The series wrapped up with a guided tour of endowment libraries led by Hayri Fehmi Yılmaz. Participants had the opportunity to visit and examine the historic collections at the Ayasofya, İstanbul Kitaplığı, Hacı Beşir Ağa, Köprülü ...

Veliyüddin Efendi, and Atıf Efendi libraries. The next stage of this collaboration will be a student workshop on March 28, during which participants will present their research papers.

Workshop on Imperial Frontiers in Münster From 9–10 February, Philip Bockholt participated in the workshop "Imperial Frontiers – Local and Global Entanglements", organised by the "Centre for Empire Studies. (Post)colonial Histories and Global Entanglements" (CES), an

interdisciplinary centre for postcolonial empire studies at the University of Münster. During the workshop, he chaired a panel on frontiers as sites of local and global entanglements—spaces shaped by ...

complex political, legal, social, and cultural processes that are often overlooked. The event also included discussions on the Ottoman Empire, highlighted by a lecture from Markus Koller (Ruhr University Bochum) ...

titled "The Bojana/Buna River – An Imperial Frontier of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century." This is the link to the programme: www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/c... The link to the website of the Centre for Empire Studies: www.uni-muenster.de/Geschichte/e...

Philip Bockholt Discusses Translation on NADAW Podcast Recently, Philip Bockholt was interviewed on the podcast “News of the Ancient World” (NADAW), hosted by the Center for History and Culture of the Eastern Mediterranean (GKM) at the University of Münster. In the interview,...

he discusses the cultural implications of translation processes, focusing on how Ottoman Turkish translations from Arabic and Persian provide crucial insights into intellectual developments in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1400 and 1750. The conversation further ...

highlights the dynamics of interdisciplinary research and transregional knowledge transfer during this period. The interview is available on Spotify and other major platforms. This is the link to the podcast: www.uni-muenster.de/EvT.../en/gk...

Call for Applications: Chagatai Manuscript Reading Course Between 29 June and 3 July, the International Summer Academy Chagatai Manuscript Reading Course will take place in Münster. Organised jointly by...

Prof. Dr. Philip Bockholt (University of Münster) and Prof. Dr. Jeanine Dağyeli (University of Vienna / Austrian Academy of Sciences), the event offers an opportunity to study Chagatai – an essential source and literary language for the history of ...

Central Asia – at an advanced level. Participants from any relevant discipline whose research focuses on Central Asia, Afghanistan and Northwestern China are welcome to apply, provided that they have acquired an intermediate level of Chagatai and are able to read the Arabo-Persian script.

The deadline for applications is 13 February 2026. Link to the event page: www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIsl...

This is the link to the event page: www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIsl...

Kristof D’hulster’s talk on the Mamluk and Post-Mamluk contexts, Mahdieh Tavakol (University of Hamburg) discussed manuscripts from the Safavid period, while Natalie Kraneiß (University of Münster) presented materials featuring endowment notes from the Maghreb.

Book Endowment Practices in the Islamic World from the Maghreb to the Safavids On 10 January, Kristof D’hulster gave a lecture entitled “Mamluk and Post-Mamluk Endowment Notes in Late-Mamluk Sultanic Manuscripts” as part of

in the "Endowment Notes Lecture Series" (Yazma Eser Kültürü Atölyesi) held at the FSMVÜ. In the future, more formats are to come through these collaborations, aiming at a young scholarly audience interested in (Ottoman) manuscript studies and multilingualism.

with Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf Üniversitesi, in particular the Centre for Manuscript Studies there, as well as Boğaziçi Üniversitesi and İstanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi. Most recently, these cooperations resulted

Interview on Cooperations Between Münster and Turkey Recently, Philip Bockholt gave an interview at the Asian Studies Centre of the University of Münster about the collaborations between Münster and several institutions in Turkey. Currently, TRANSLAPT works together...

Excellent news! My latest article has seen the light of print:"Qayt Sharīfī's Turkic Class Notes and Tamurbāy's First Arabic Scribbles: Language and Education at the Mamluk Barracks in Light of Ayasofya MS 1448", Mamlūk Studies Review 28 (2025): 39-104.