আরবি হরফে বাংলা পুথিনামা : দেশি ভাষার সুলুক সন্ধান
ড. শহিদুল হাসান
সহযোগী অধ্যাপক, ইতিহাস বিভাগ, ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59815/isp.vol4301

Abstract: This article examines the practice of writing Bangla manuscripts in Arabic script, which is a lesser discussed issue in the history of Bangla language, literature and book culture in pre-modern Bengal as well as in South Asia. Abdul Karim Sahityabisharad collected a few manuscripts which were copied in the eastern part of the delta, especially from the present Chittagong district and its adjacent areas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The present effort is to explore the different dynamic behind the creation of such manuscript and placing it in the greater context of Bengali literary culture, book culture and cultural practices that prevailed in Bengal from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Primary source of this research is the manuscript collection of Bangla Academy and the Dhaka University Central Library. However, these manuscripts include diverse genres of Middle Bengali literature such as Shariat-Nama, Nurnama, Nikah Mangal, Fatemar Suratnama, Sakina Bilap, Fakkarnama, etc. The study contends that use of Arabic script for writing Bangla manuscript was not only influenced by religious instruction, but also matched the general demands of readership. The study challenges the established idea that the copying of Bangla manuscripts in Arabic script was a marginal and late phenomenon by reevaluating previous scholarly discussions on the origins, chronology, and motivations behind such scribal practice. It also intends to show how this manuscript tradition facilitated the process of vernacularization of Islamic knowledge and Perso-Arabic literary works in the eastern part of Bengal.

Key Words: Bangla Manuscripts, Arabic Script, Literary Culture, Book Culture.