From the Particular View to the Overall Picture. Using Computer Vision, AI, Palaeography, and Philology to Reconstruct the Biography of the Great Mosque of Sanaa Manuscript Collection as an ensemble

DFG Long-Term Project

2026–2029 (2038)

The research project BiSaME focuses on investigating and contextualising a collection of ancient parchment Qur’an manuscripts – a total of 929 objects dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries CE discovered in 1973 in the Great Mosque of Sanaa (Yemen). The manuscripts were restored in Yemen during the 1980s and 1990s as part of a large-scale German-Yemeni project. Microfilm copies of the restored Qur’ans were recently digitised by the Berlin State Library and made available to the public. This makes it possible, for the first time, to analyse this valuable collection of manuscripts in its entirety. The project is led by Alba Fedeli of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, who previously conducted research at the University of Hamburg for many years, and Thomas Eich from Islamic Studies, Asia Africa Institute, at the University of Hamburg.

The project aims to unlock the potential of the images in the manuscripts and thereby reconstruct the history of the collection. By utilising technology from the fields of computer vision and artificial intelligence in conjunction with the latest research on Qur’anic manuscripts in palaeography, textual scholarship, and art history, the project systematically examines one of the most widely discussed manuscript collections in the Middle East, which has often been the subject of speculation and controversy. Analysing the debates that have influenced the public reception of the ‘Sanaa manuscripts’ over the past 50 years, particularly as a result of media coverage, constitutes one of the strands of the project.

BiSaME aims not only to advance scientific knowledge but also to promote appreciation of and access to this collection by addressing a research gap that has thus far been filled by media narratives. It thus raises awareness of the collection’s significance both within academic research and beyond.

The first phase of this long-term project – from 2026 to 2029 – focuses on three components: first, the palaeographic and philological analysis of the manuscripts for a clustering of their typologies based also on image processing and computer vision algorithms, carried out by Alba Fedeli and Mahdi Jampour; second, Abdo Dohaim examines the history of the Great Mosque of Sanaa where the manuscripts have been stored for centuries for the reconstruction of the socio-historical context of the manuscript collection. And third, Thomas Eich analyses the reception history of the manuscript collection as regards the political and intellectual backbone of the restoration project in the 1980s and 1990s and of the UNESCO Mission as part of the Memory of the World programme in the 1990s.