In Lives of the Prophets: The Illustrations to Hafiz-i Abru’s “Assembly of Chronicles” Mohamad Reza Ghiasian analyses two extant copies of the Majmaʿ al-tawarikh produced for the Timurid ruler Shahrukh (r. 1405–1447). The first manuscript is kept in Topkapı Palace and the second is widely dispersed. Codicological analysis of these manuscripts not only allows a better understanding of Hafiz-i Abru’s contributions to rewriting earlier history, but has served to identify the existence of a previously unrecognised copy of the Jamiʿ al-tawarikh produced at Rashid al-Din’s scriptorium. Through a meticulous close reading of both text and image, Mohamad Reza Ghiasian convincingly proves that numerous paintings of the dispersed manuscript were painted over the text before its dispersal in the early twentieth century.

This paper would identify further references to Jami in Malay Sufi sources of the 17th – 19th century. The paper would begin by utilizing recently found manuscripts ascribed to Shams al-Din al-Sumatra’i and Nur al-Din al-Raniri. It is found that a number of hitherto unknown manuscripts also contain references to Nur al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Jami. These references tell us how utilization of Jami’s writings by the Malay Sufi scholars is used to justify their own teachings of Sufi metaphysics. They also tell us the richness of the library at the Achehnese court of Sultan Iskandar Muda (d.1636) and subsequently Sultan Iskandar Thani (d.1641). However most scholars of the 17th century tend to just incorporate Jami’s writings into their own Malay text instead of directly translating Jami’s own writings into Malay. Mainly based on unedited manuscripts of Jawi Malay, this paper will also further identify the many instances of direct quotations from Jami being incorporated into the writings of famous Malay Sufi scholars from the 17th to the 19th century. As we progress further into the 19th and early 20th century we find the quotations from Jami almost non-existent in the writings of Malay Sufis of this era. How are we to explain this state of affairs? Full direct translations from Jami are non-existent or are they? Utilizing a recently found manuscript titled Durrah al-Fakhirah it seems that Jami’s own writings have been translated into Jawi Malay making it accessible to not only the people of that particular era but also to the contemporary Malay world. Nuances, differences, similarities and Sufi ontology are the main elements in this paper on a brief review of Jami’s influence in the Malay world.

An urban biography, Brody: A Galician Border City in the Long Nineteenth Century reconciles 150 years of the town's socioeconomic history with its cultural memory. The first comprehensive study of this city under Habsburg-Austrian rule, Börries Kuzmany advises against reading urban history solely through the national lens. Besides exploring Brody's extraordinary ethno-confessional structure—Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians—Kuzmany examines the interrelation between the city's geographical location at the imperial border, its standing as a key commercial hub in East-Central Europe, and its position as a major springboard for the dissemination of the Haskalah in Galicia and the Russian Empire. After delving into the contradictory perceptions of Brody in travelogues, fiction and memory books, Kuzmany uses contemporary and historical photographs to provide an illustrated walking tour of this now Ukrainian town.