Majma' al-Bahrain: A 13th-Century Arabic Manuscript from Qatar National Library

A high-resolution digital copy of manuscript HC.MS.2018.0046 from the Qatar National Library Heritage Collection. The manuscript is titled 'Majma' al-Bahrain wa-Multaqa al-Nirayn' and was authored by Ahmad ibn 'Ali ibn Taghlib Muzafar al-Din ibn al-Sa'ati, who lived from 1254-1294 or 1295. The dataset is a 2.5 GB ZIP file published under a CC0 1.0 license.

Use Cases

• Optical Character Recognition (OCR) training for historical Arabic script based on high-resolution manuscript images.
• Digital preservation and archival studies using a master copy from a heritage collection.
• Linguistic and textual analysis of a 13th-century Arabic literary work.
• Training image segmentation models on manuscript page layouts and marginalia.

Strengths

• High-resolution digital master copy suitable for detailed analysis.
• Directly sourced from the Qatar National Library Heritage Collection, providing authoritative provenance.
• Published under a permissive CC0 1.0 public domain dedication.
• File size of 2.5 GB suggests detailed image content.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation and sample data are unavailable, requiring manual inspection after download.
• The description does not specify the number of pages or images within the 2.5 GB archive.
• Data may reflect the specific preservation and digitization biases of the source institution.

Provenance

Source

Qatar National Library

Collection Method

Digitization of a physical manuscript from the QNL Heritage Collection.

Time Range

Manuscript authored circa 1254-1294/1295 CE.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-20 10:53:01; freshness should be verified.