Also provided by Professor Jan Just Witkam on his site is an online self-study course in Arabic paleography, apparently based upon the course Dr Witkam provides himself at Leiden. The course is meant to assist the student in differentiating between different Arabic scripts, and becoming accustomed to deciphering the the copyist's hand.

The page has 27 examples of various scripts, ranging from Europe's oldest known extant paper book from the 3rd century hegira, to the often-difficult-to-read older naskhī and maghribī scripts.

The professor outlines the following steps to proceeding:

• Read the biographical description of the manuscript (provided on the first page by Dr Witkam).
  
• Compare the image of the manuscript with Dr Witkam's own proposed transliteration. Get accustomed wih the peculiarities of this hand.
  
• Transcribe in the same way a considerable portion of the part of the manuscript which has not been transliterated. Start where the given transliteration ends. See how far you come.
  
• Note remarkable or unusual ligatures and make a list of these.
  
• Make an inventory of all signs and peculiarities which are different from modern practice.
  

Many thanks to Dr Witkam for this invaluable site that he has put together over the past few years, and particularly for this course, which went live online in the fall of 2007.

Via The Papy List:

The Arabic Papyrology Webclass (Spring 2008): Early Letters

During the last years, there has been a heated debate about how far we should trust the literary sources on Umayyad and Early Abbasid history. Alternatively, we might use original letters preserved from that time. In this on-line webclass, each week (or two weeks), we will read an unpublished Arabic letter from eighth century Egypt.

Dates: Spring semester 2008, 18th of February - 26th of May, 2008, Mondays, 12-14 h (Swiss time, time might be changed). Participants: MA and PhD students in Arabic and Islamic studies, scholars interested in Arabic documents, persons in charge of Arabic manuscript collections, etc. Requirements: a computer (download of two plug-ins); internet access; earphones; microphone (internal or external). Communication will be through your browser. No installation of applications or special fonts. You will be sent a scan of each letter in advance. Estimated time for preparation: 1-2 hours/week. Teaching language: German or English, depending on participants. Fees: CHF 250.- (scholarships on request).

Further information and registration: http://www.ori.uzh.ch/apw.
Deadline for registration: 4th of February, 2008.
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Prof. Dr. Andreas Kaplony
Orientalisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Wiesenstrasse 9, Büro H-05, CH-8008 Zürich
Tel. 0(041)44 634 07 36, Fax 0(041)44 634 36 92
www.ori.uzh.ch. kaplony at oriental.uzh.ch