Sharh Majma' al-Bahrayn: A 14th-Century Arabic Legal Manuscript from Qatar

A high-resolution digital copy of manuscript HC.MS.00801 from the Qatar National Library Heritage Collection. The 16.3 GB archive contains a 14th-century commentary on Islamic law by Ibn al-Sa'ati. The dataset was published by Qatar National Library under a CC0 1.0 license.

Use Cases

• Train optical character recognition (OCR) models based on high-resolution scans of classical Arabic script.
• Conduct textual analysis of a 14th-century Islamic legal commentary based on the manuscript's content.
• Study paleography and manuscript illumination based on the visual features of the digitized pages.
• Build digital archives for cultural heritage preservation based on the master copy from a national library collection.

Strengths

• The dataset is a 16.3 GB high-resolution digital master copy, suggesting detailed image quality.
• It originates from the Qatar National Library Heritage Collection, indicating a reputable source.
• It is published under a permissive CC0 1.0 public domain license.

Limitations

• The specific number of pages or images is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; the structure and metadata of the ZIP contents must be inferred after download.
• The description metadata is limited to basic catalog information; detailed scholarly context requires external sources.

Provenance

Source

Qatar National Library Heritage Collection (manuscript HC.MS.00801).

Collection Method

Digitization of a physical manuscript.

Time Range

The manuscript is dated to 1460 AH (approx. 2042 CE), containing a work by an author who died in 1398 CE.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-03 06:38:44; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely associated with the Arab/Islamic world, specific origin within the manuscript is not detailed.