The Bey, the mufti and the scattered pearls : Shari'a and political
leadership in Tunisia's Age of Reform -1800-1864
Haven, Elisabeth Cornelia van der
Citation
Haven, E. C. van der. (2006, October 26). The Bey, the mufti and the scattered pearls : Shari'a
and political leadership in Tunisia's Age of Reform -1800-1864. Retrieved from
https://hdl.handle.net/1887/4968
Version:
Corrected Publisher’s Version
License:
Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the
Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden
Downloaded from:
https://hdl.handle.net/1887/4968
XI
Preface and Acknowledgements
Writing the dissertation proved to be far from a solitary adventure. Now that the task has come to an end, it is a pleasure to recall the many persons that supported and encouraged me in my research and in the arduous work of revealing the meaning of the religious documents, written in the Arabic of generations long gone. Many hours were spent in Leiden, Tunis and in the small village north of it, La Marsa, weighing words and phrases and discussing the issues under study.
I owe a particular debt to Dr. Muammad El-Aziz Ben Achour, at present His Excellency the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, who kindly invited me to the library of his grandfather, the late Mālikī shaykh al-islām, Muammad a%-&āhir Ben Achour, and did me the honor of handing a copy of Muammad Bayram’s treatise on governance and law, in manuscript.
Special appreciation is reserved to those in Tunisia who lent me their ear and helped me understand the distinct Tunisian culture of learning, prof.dr. Mohamed-Hédi Cherif, prof.dr. H’mida Enneïfer, prof.dr.Abdelhamid Henia, mr. Raouf Riahi, prof.dr. Mohamed Talbi, prof.dr. Abdeljelil Temimi, mr. Ahmed Lahbib Djellouli, mrs. Ouassila Bayram, and mr. Mohamed Bennānī of Bayt Bennānī.
Last but not least my thanks are due to the staff of the Leiden University Library, to the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Tunisie, then still in the old barracks in the medina, and to the Fathers of the Institut des Belles Lettres Arabes (IBLA) in Tunis.
The research in Tunisia could not have taken place without the generous financial support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Stichting Oosters Instituut of Leiden University, the Stichting Dr. Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds and the Slavenkas of Zierikzee.
