The manuscripts will be published online in an open-access research platform using ediarum, an online tool for editing manuscripts developed at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Berlin, Germany). Along with the photocopies of the manuscripts, the platform will feature full transcriptions of the Arabic texts, an English translation of selected manuscripts as well as analytical metadata and bibliography. This will result in the creation of a comprehensive research tool on the history of Barlaam and Josaphat in Arabic literature.
The project will facilitate a detailed analysis of different Arabic versions and their relation to one another and will allow for a comprehensive cultural contextualization of their history. Moreover, it will open up the Arabic tradition of the text’s transmission to wider research in the context of world literature.