Curating Islamic Manuscripts with Nur Sobers-Khan

Art Informant

In this episode, Isabelle Imbert welcomes Nur Sobers-Khan, doctor in Islamic studies and curator of Islamic arts. Nur started working in curation immediately after getting her Ph.D. in 2012, and has since worked in several collections, looking at Islamic manuscripts, but also objects and archival material. Her various experiences constitute a great opportunity to learn more about the different layers of a curator role and the skills learned along the way. In the episode, she talks about the different institutions she has worked in, as well as her ongoing research on South-Asian manuscripts and the so-called Delhi collection of manuscripts in the British Library.
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Mentioned in the Episode and Further Links

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  • Exhibitions:
    • Marvellous Creatures : Animal Fables in Islamic Art, exhibition catalogue from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, 2015
    • 'Building Our Collection: Mughal and Safavid Albums' Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, 2015
    • Qajar Women: Images of Women in 19th-century Iran (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2016)
  • Doctoral research:
    • Slaves Without Shackles: Forced Labour and Manumission in the Galata Court Registers, 1560–1572 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2014)
  • The "Delhi library" in the British Library:
    • “Muslim Scribal Culture in India Around 1800: Towards a Disentangling of the Mughal Library and Delhi Collection” in Scribal Practice and the Global Cultures of Colophons, 1400-1800 New Transculturalisms, ed. C.D. Bahl and S. Hanß (Switzerland, 2022)
• More information on the "Delhi Library":
  • Dr Saqib Baburi, "Sufism and Persian Manuscripts from the Delhi Collection, British Library", talk given at the British Library in 2018 (audio)
• "Learning Lessons from the Cyber-Attack", British Library cyber incident review,