Al-Jami' Bayn al-'Ilm wa al-'Amal: A 12th-Century Arabic Engineering Manuscript

Qatar National Library provides a 6.8 GB high-resolution digital copy of manuscript HC.MS.2021.0002 from its Heritage Collection. The manuscript is titled 'Al-Jami' Bayn al-'Ilm wa al-'Amal fi Sina'at al-Hiyal' (The Compendium of Theory and Practice in the Mechanical Arts) by Ismail al-Jazari, who lived from 1136 to 1206. The dataset was last updated on May 6, 2026, and is shared under a CC0 1.0 public domain dedication.

Use Cases

• Training Optical Character Recognition (OCR) models based on high-resolution images of historical Arabic script.
• Conducting digital paleography studies based on the manuscript's handwriting and layout.
• Analyzing the evolution of mechanical engineering concepts based on the textual and illustrative content described.
• Creating digital editions or translations based on the transcribed text likely present in the manuscript.

Strengths

• High-resolution digital master copy suitable for detailed analysis.
• Clear provenance from the Qatar National Library Heritage Collection.
• Released under a permissive CC0 1.0 public domain license.
• Large file size (6.8 GB) suggests detailed image quality.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The specific number of pages or images is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Qatar National Library Heritage Collection (manuscript HC.MS.2021.0002).

Collection Method

Digitization of a physical historical manuscript.

Time Range

Manuscript authored in the 12th century (author lived 1136-1206).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-06 09:37:19; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely associated with the Islamic world of the 12th century; currently held in Qatar.