Macdonald Library

The Macdonald Library

In 1894, only two years after Duncan Black Macdonald arrived at Hartford Seminary to teach Hebrew, the Hartford Seminary Foundation acquired the library of August Mueller, professor of philology at the University of Königsberg, Germany. The Mueller Semitic Library contained 2,367 books and 353 pamphlets, many of them in Arabic, Syriac, or Persian.  The collection contained Qur’anic commentaries, Islamic histories (including the Annals of al-Ṭabarī), and Arabic poetry. This library acquisition was an incredible treasure for Macdonald and Hartford. Issa Boulatta, former faculty member of the Macdonald Center, spent his sabbatical in 1978 evaluating this collection. He remarked that:

The value of the HSF collection of Arabic manuscripts does not lie only in its size. Its contents represent the spectrum of all Islamic branches of learning. Books on Islamic theology, law, and religious practice and tradition are naturally abundant. There are also historical works on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and liturgical manuals on his birth (Mawlid) and his nocturnal journey and ascension (Isra’ and Miräj). Philosophy, logic, mathematics, natural sciences, and medicine are represented by a few exemplars, and so are such subjects as occult sciences, magic, geomancy, and astrology. But the collection is especially well stocked with works on Islamic mysticism and theosophy, a reflection on the abundance and popularity of such works in the pre-modem period in the Middle East. It is also rich in works on grammar, rhetoric, prosody, poetry, and belles-lettres. It has many manuscripts of the Qur’an, some illuminated and extremely well executed, others in fragmentary form and quite old, and one with partial inter-linear translation in Persian. The collection contains copies of some of the classical and best-known works on Qur’an exegesis and Hadith commentary, as well as on Islamic theology and law (Issa Boullata, “The Arabic Manuscript Collection at Hartford Seminary.” Hamdard Islamicus 8, no. 2 (Sum 1985), 92).

Throughout his tenure at Hartford,  Duncan Black Macdonald would continue to add to this collection of Islamic texts – especially during his 1908 sabbatical to Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus.

Another Hartford faculty member, Professor Mardiros Ananikian, Professor of Turkish and Armenian, also spent time in the Middle East purchasing manuscripts in the 1920s and 30s. The Arabic manuscripts were catalogued by William M. Randall, as part of his PhD Dissertation in 1929. Steven Blackburn updated the catalog of Arabic and Armenian manuscripts in 1991. Shortly thereafter, much of the collection was sold to Yale University, where they are now housed in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Researchers can find the inventory of Hartford manuscript collection by searching the Yale University Library Catalog, here.

Prior to the sale, David Kerr, then Director of the Macdonald Center, spearheaded the publication of the Illuminated Manuscripts of Hartford Seminary so that Hartford would have a lasting record of its original collection. The remainder of the Macdonald Collection, remains in the archives room of the Library of Hartford International University. A list of the items from his original personal library still held at HIU can be found here: 

Arabian Nights Collection

One of the important components of Macdonald’s library was his collection of editions of the Arabian Nights. Professor Macdonald believed that they held important insights to Near eastern culture and society and used them regularly for his teaching. After Professor Macdonald retired, he donated his library to the Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1942. Elizabeth deW. Root, director of the Case Memorial Library, reported that:

The Collection comprises over 1,000 volumes, in the various editions and languages of the Arabian Nights, as well as other books on folklore and related material. There are photostat copies of the Manuscripts of the Nights in the Vatican Library and the Bibliotheque Nationale, including one of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” the only known oriental source, discovered by Dr. Macdonald in 1908, in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. Some of these editions are rare, and some not found in the British Museum, or in any other of the great libraries. Some were gathered for their conformity to the original text; others for their uniqueness, and still another group for its illustrations. The languages into which it has been translated are Arabic, Bengalese, Canarese, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hindustani, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Persian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telegu, Turkish and Urdu (Elizabeth de W. Root, “The Arabic Collection in the Library of the Hartford Seminary Foundation,” Bulletin Connecticut Library Association 10, no. 2 (April 1943), 185).

At it's donation, it was the largest known collection of editions of the Arabian Nights in the world. In 2023, Nancy Lois began to catalog the collection to be available for future researchers. Further information on the HIU special collections and archives can be found here.

Further resources on the original Macdonald Library collection:

‘Awad, G. “Arabic Manuscripts in the American Libraries,” Sumer 7, no. 2 (1951), 1-43.

Boullata, Issa J. “The Arabic Manuscript Collection at Hartford Seminary.” Hamdard Islamicus 8, no. 2 (Sum 1985): 91–95.

Blackburn, Steven P., Duncan Black Macdonald Center, and Hartford Seminary. The Arabic Manuscript Collection, Duncan Black Macdonald Center, Hartford Seminary : Interim Report, 1991.

Kerr, David A. ed. The Illuminated Manuscripts of Hartford Seminary: The Art of Christian-Muslim Relations. Hartford, Connecticut: Hartford Seminary, 1994.

Macdonald, Duncan Black. “Description of the Semitic manuscripts in the library of the Hartford Theological Seminary.” American Oriental Society’s Proceedings, March 1894. Journal of the American Oriental Society 16 (1896): lxix-lxxvi

Randall, William M. “A Detailed Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Ananikian Collection of the Hartford Seminary Foundation : A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.” Dissertation, [Hartford Seminary Foundation], 1929.

Root, Elizabeth de W. “The Arabic Collection in the Library of the Hartford Seminary Foundation,” Bulletin Connecticut Library Association 10, no. 2 (April 1943).