Bidayat al-Mujtahid: A 12th-Century Islamic Jurisprudence Manuscript from Qatar

Qatar National Library provides a 9.1 GB high-resolution digital copy of manuscript HC.MS.2016.0013 from its Heritage Collection. The manuscript is titled 'Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa Nihayat al-Muqtasid' and was authored by the Andalusian philosopher and jurist Ibn Rushd (Averroes) between 1126 and 1198. The dataset was last updated on 2026-05-17 and is released under a CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication license.

Use Cases

• Optical Character Recognition (OCR) training for classical Arabic script based on high-resolution manuscript images.
• Digital preservation and analysis of historical Islamic legal texts.
• Studying the transmission and materiality of 12th-century Andalusian scholarly works.
• Textual analysis of Ibn Rushd's comparative jurisprudence methodology.

Strengths

• High-resolution digital master copy suitable for detailed paleographic study.
• Directly sourced from the Qatar National Library's Heritage Collection, providing authoritative provenance.
• Released under a permissive CC0 1.0 license, allowing unrestricted use.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality and legibility require manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; the structure and organization of files within the 9.1 GB ZIP must be inferred.
• Data may reflect the specific preservation state and scanning conditions of the single source manuscript.

Provenance

Source

Qatar National Library Heritage Collection (manuscript HC.MS.2016.0013).

Collection Method

Digitization of a physical manuscript.

Time Range

Manuscript dated to approximately 1350 CE, containing a work authored 1126-1198 CE.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-17 08:59:20; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely originates from the Islamic world, with a direct link to Qatari cultural heritage institutions.