Uniqueness in profusion. Manuscripts in Arabic scripts

Print was not adopted by the cultures using the Arabic script before the very late eighteenth century. This is why a great number of manuscripts in Arabic script, from any period ranging between the seventh and the twentieth centuries CE are still extant. All of them are unique artifacts. Most researchers in premodern Arabic Studies must use some manuscripts in the course of their carreer. Yet, the attention to the object is not systematic practice today. Arabic codicology has made tremendous progress in the last years but is still not used as widely as it ought to be. My attention to the codex and not merely to its text gave me the opportunity to discover specific uses of the books I was studying, with implications in text history, circulation of knowledge, or even anthropology.