My name is Starla Reese. I'm graduating from the Human Services degree and I want to give a big shout out for my parents Sylvia and Paris and my kids Kaleek and Kanaya and my all my friends and families for always being there and supporting me. I also want to give a big shout out to the women's program because without them I wouldn't be here. Hey mom, hey dad, hey Christopher. Thank you so much for supporting me through this whole process. I'm so excited to be graduating. Thank you guys so much. I want to thank my family first and foremost because if it wasn't for their support and their guidance and their flexibility I wouldn't be able to work and go to school and I also want to thank my friends who have supported me emotionally and helped me with homework to be able to reach my goals. So thanks everyone. I would like to thank my family for this great opportunity of supporting me with my education. I'm about to graduate so yay. Hi I'm Amber and I'm happy to be graduating. I'd like to thank all my family and friends and most importantly my daughter, Mari. First of all I just want to say thank you God for giving me strength to take these calls. I'm majoring in biology. My name is Faith Matting and I'm a bio major and I'm planning to go to two years for Bachelor of Science to become physician assistant and I just want to take this opportunity to thank my family, my friends to be with me during difficult times and I just want to say God bless you. Thank you for instructors for all the support they have given me and thank you especially Mr. Dusty to be there as a mathematician and in other areas and just want to take thank you for the parents who have been here for this graduation. Thank you once again. God bless. Hi my name is Jennifer. I'm graduating as patient account specialist and I'm proud to be graduating. I'm Jasmine Flair and I'm so excited to graduate from Highline. I just want to say thank you to my mom, to my sister and my amazing sister back home Sashi. So thank you guys so much and I'm graduating from Highline. We're so ready to graduate and finally to be done with anatomy. I'd like to thank my parents Michael and my fiancee Ben. Hi I'm so excited to graduate. I'd like to thank my mom, my dad and my wonderful sister. I want to thank my mom, my dad, my brothers and my sister. Hello mom dad this is your son. Thank you so much for coming to my graduation. I'm really I'm really happy you're gonna support me for my graduation on June 11th. At the Sherwood Suncat Washington I am so happy to see you too. I'm looking forward for all for all the graduate for all the support. All you help all you help in this graduation on June 11th is coming this coming Thursday. Thank you so much. Hi my name is Alan Quach. Hi my name is Isaiah. And thank you for the graduation. And I just want to say thanks to everybody and love y'all. And I thank you my parents and my sister. Thank you. And I just want to say thanks for my mom and grandma and grandpa and all my family. And I thanks so much and have a good look and to that's a fitting. Yep good luck. Hi everyone my name is Rachel from Kenya. Thank you mom. Thank you grandma. Thank you Mama Joyce. Thank you all my friends and my best friends Martin Hiram, Winnie. Thank you so much for coming. I'm so excited for this one. And I hope to go far. Thank you. Hi I'm Liam. I'm gonna be graduating with my A. And I'd like to thank Karen Steinbach for just being an amazing advisor. And I'd also also like to thank Richard Bankhead just for being an amazing teacher. Hi I'm Karen Lung. I'll be graduating with my associate degree in biology. And I have three people I want to thank. I want to thank my mom and dad for always supporting me and teaching me to always make the most of my education. And I want to thank my best friend Laura Muirdink who is graduating with me and walking with me at this commencement. She has been my biggest support all throughout my last two years here at Highline. And without her I wouldn't have made it here. So thank you Laura. Hi my name is Michelle McBride. I'll be graduating with my AAS and the Medical Assistance Degree. I would like to give a shout out to Michelle and Senai who are my two beautiful daughters and my best friend who is in heaven smiling down. And I also would like to give a shout out to my mom because she's also a medical assistant. And this is the reason why I started to be a medical assistant for myself. Hello everyone. My name is Batum and today I'm so excited. And I would like to say thank you to my parents-in-law, my mom Benna, and my father Joe, my sister, my brothers, and my aunt, my uncle who's always supporting me until I have today and a special thanks to my husband, Sukno, and my sons Benjamin and Jason who's always be there for me no matter what. And I would like to say thank you to my mom, my parents, my mom, my dad, and Cambodia who's always supporting me and encouraging me all the way here. And thank you so much.  Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Getty.   I love you mom and dad. Have a good one, everyone. Congratulations to all of you too. I'd like to give a shout out to my best friend Breanne, my son Trey, my grandma, my mom, everybody who supported me. Thank you. Hello, everyone at Highline Commencement. My name is Denise Johnson. I'm graduating with an Associate's of Applied Science and Hospitality Tourism Management. I want to thank my family, Marcel, Charisma, Emmanuel, and Kingston, along with my sponsors for my scholarship, the Highline Foundation, as well as Port Jobs, who has been a great supporter of my education. Thank you to my colleagues, Elizabeth and Dexter, who are also walking with me in graduation. And thank you to the Airport University students who are graduating. Congratulations to all the Highline graduates. Hi, my name is Aisha Hassan. I'm from Somalia, East Africa. This is my, almost last year, I'm graduating this June, coming on. I'll be very happy all my students plus all my family supported me. And I also want to say thank you to everyone who supported me and helped me a lot. I just want to give a special thanks to my mom, who's been the biggest supporter of mine. She's pushed me through everything, hard work, dedication. She's motivated me also to graduate and to finish my A here and was able to help me transfer to the university. I just want to say I love you, mom, and thanks for all the help. I just want to thank the entire community that helped with my success. That means UA, Satio there in Trio, and Brian Galloway and Veteran Services. Without your assistance, who knows what this would have happened. I am graduating with two year degree and I'm in my BAS now. This is it, man. This rocks. Thanks. Hey, I just want to thank my girlfriend, Kristen, and my son, Gavin, for helping me in this transition from the military to the civilian world. I really appreciate everything that you did for me and standing behind me. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Grace Mao. I'm happy to be at Highline to be one of the students who is graduating this quarter. I want to support my husband and my daughter and my friends and relatives who have been very supportive. Thank you everyone and happy graduation there. Hi, my name is Jenny and I'm graduating from the medical assistant program and I just wanted to thank my husband, Jonathan and my kids, James, Alex, Charlotte, and my mom and dad for all your support. And I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you. Love you. Hi, my name is Michelle Hall. It's been an awesome journey here at Highline Community College. I'd like to give a shout out to my family and I really want to thank the instructors for all their support and congratulations to all the graduates.  Gracias. Hi, my name is Christopher Ethan Crisostomo and I would like to thank my mom, my dad, my siblings for making this day possible. And I wouldn't be here without you. And I love you guys. Thank you. Hi, my name is Adriana McMahon. And I would just like to thank Laura Rosa, my advisor for helping me out the last two years. So thank you very much. And my family for everything they do for me. Hi, I just want to thank my family for this beautiful day. I want to send a special shout out to a lot of people and staff at Highline. Dr. Bryce, Jody White, Patricia, Shannon Waits, my partner, Twin, who's taping this. Yay, we are doing so good. I'm so proud of all of us. Thank you. I'd like to thank my mom, my dad, and everyone at Access Services for all their support, especially Jenny Sandler and Melissa McDaniel for helping me get through school the school year here at Highline College. My name is Shywon Haynes. I wanted to give a shout out to Doris Martinez. Since coming to Highline, Doris has been like a very, very, very inspirational and driving force for me. I honestly do not feel like I would have stayed at Highline if Doris just hadn't kept giving me the encouragement and just the pushes that I need to proceed with it. So major shout out to Doris and major shout out to the CLS. Hi, my name is Jontorius Ezell. And my I really want to give thanks to my family for the support for my Highline faculty, the staff, and all the people that helped me along this way and not only helped me, just I've seen them help other people.  It's been a hard two years for some of us because with family issues and different things and going to school, and it's just a blessing for us to make it this day. And so I just want to give a shout out to everybody that helped along the way. I'm here to help people that's coming behind me. And I thank God for this opportunity. Peace. Thank you, parents and my sister, we're going to support me to learn in Highline. And now I'm ready. I'm so thank you all of my friends and all the people support me and help me to pass the Community College. So much. Thank you. Hi, my name is Eman Musa. I am originally from Sudan. And I came here to America in 2005 as a refugees. But I didn't went to school later on 2012. I started to go to school and I get my GED. And right now I'm very happy because I'm getting my associate degree. And after that, I will continue to do my four years degree and my doctor and my master and my doctor. And I want to thank all my friends, Salwa Sidahmed, Aisha Hassan and Etouaw and my daughter Ihdah for their support. And also I want to thank all Highline, like library staff and all my teacher. And I'm very appreciate their help. Thank you. My name is Matthew Wolff. I am graduating from Highline with my Associates of Arts Emphasis in Math with honors. And I'd like to thank Wolfram Alpha. Hi family and friends and Highline awesome people. This is Latanya here. I just want to say thank you so much to the staff at Highline and the teachers and the faculty, especially the CLS. I want to thank my family for supporting me and helping me get to this next step in my life. And I'm really excited to graduate and thank you so much for the love and support. Thank you. Hey everybody, my name is Daniel. I'd like to say thank you to my mom and my dad specifically. Also all the guys in the upstairs crowd. You were great. It was awesome to have friends throughout the two years that I was here at Highline. I can't thank everybody enough and go class of 2015. Hi, I'm Chantel and I'm graduating with honors with my AAS in business and I want to have a wonderful year with my BA next year. I want to thank my family for supporting me this whole time. I know it's been a struggle and I want to thank two of my favorite teachers, Mr. Gervin and Ms. Copeland. If it wasn't for you, I don't think I'd have made it. So thank you so much and I love you. I just want to thank everyone for coming out to support me today. I'm so excited that I finally reach this day. It feels like it takes forever, but there's no way that I could have made it without you all, family and friends from watching my kids, helping me cook meals, tutoring or just encouraging and supporting me, praying with me, everything. Not one thing has gone missed and I love you all and just want to thank you again. Hi, my name is Selam. I'm graduating this year. I'm so excited. I just want to say thank you to all the staffs and to my family, especially my dad, my mom. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sherwit. I need to say thank you to my mother, especially who helped me through this support to me, especially to my brother and then to all instructors who helped me through from SL to this class. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Gail Warner. I'd like to give thanks to my husband for being supportive and being encouraging with me through my education and I'd like to give thanks to my grandkids Aishina and Anante. Hi, thank you and sorry for all the times I didn't take you to the park on the weekends, but it's going to be worth it. Nana's going to be graduating and also I'd like to give thanks to my son Clayton for also helping and my son Bobby and his fiancee Kelsey for being supportive and helping me through my journey. Thank you. Hi, my name is Saida Roper. I'm graduating 2015. I just want to give big thanks to God up above. I also want to give thanks to my husband and my mother and my four children. Thank you guys so much for being there for me, being supportive and encouraging to get me through this and I'm so thankful that you guys are going to continue on supporting me with my future endeavors in education. Thank you. Hi, my name is Leticia class of 2015, graduating from chemical dependency and human services. I would like to thank God for being my biggest support in life. Also want to give a shout out to my daughter Kamaya and thank you to all my family and friends who came out to see me make this achievement in life. Thank you.  I want to give a thanks to my children for always being there for me and always being supportive. My family and friends for their words of encouragement, inspirations, and all my family and friends that came out today to support me. Thank you and I am graduating with my 2015 associate's degree in human service and chemical dependency. Excuse me. Thank you. Hi, my name is Nazem Netzagai. I would like to say thank you to all my family who supports me through this all years and I would like to say special my mom. I really thank you for your support and I was going to say thank you for my kids to the two oldest for their support and to the youngest to be patient and I would love to say special thank you to my husband. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Angel Leang Wing. This is my last quarter. I started Highlights and I think it was the right choice for me to show Highlight College and I can transfer University of Washington for my rapid design major and I would like to thank for my mom and all my friends who have support me. So I become a person today. Hi everyone. Welcome to Class of 2015. I hope that everyone here is happy today to graduate and I just want to thank my family and everyone that's made this possible. Thank you. Hello, I'm Austin Landon. Graduating with the Highlight College Achieve Program Class of 2015. Go Thunderbirds! Shout out to my family. Highlight for giving this opportunity and I'm looking forward for the future with hope for me. Shout out to Thunderbirds. Achieve Program, my family, myself for being on this journey and I'm looking forward to the graduation. Have a good time. Thanks again Highlight. Go Thunderbirds. Mahalo. Thank you. My name is Laura Janes. Hola a todos. Buenas noches. Thank you for coming to celebrate today our graduation. I want to thank my mom and my dad for your unconditional support. I also want to thank my sister and my other family members. I want to thank just in my partner for encourage me and support any crazy idea I have and I also want to thank my instructors for your time, your support and I also want to thank my supervisors and my mentors for encouraging me and always willing to take the time to teach me something new. Thank you. Hi Hayden. Mommy loves you. Hi auntie, mommy, family. Thanks for coming. Appreciate all your love and support. I did it. Hello my name is Teddy and I'm graduating with AA in computer science. First and foremost I would like to thank God and second I would like to thank my family, my mom and my dad. Thank you so much for doing everything you could to for me to be able to get here but I'm a natural but I'm a natural and I would like to thank my sister Leah and Abe for helping me get through this journey and lastly I would like to thank my teachers for for not giving up on me. Thank you. Hey my name is Prabjot. I'm a computer science student. I just completed my AS. First of all I'm going to thank God for like helping me to study and all that. I want to thank my family, my mother, my father, my sisters that helped me in the studying and all that programming section. I want to thank my teachers who helped me with every problem that I have and I just want to thanks Highline for giving me AS. Hello everyone. Welcome to our graduation. I've been looking forward to this day for a long time and I'm so excited. I actually came to Highline years ago and I can't believe that this day actually finally came and so I'm about ready to jump up and down but I'll maintain. I wanted to give a big thank you to my family and to all the awesome staff at Highline especially like the people I've worked with this year in the Center for Leadership and Service like JB and Nuri and Natasha and all of the student staff. It's been such a pleasure to come and to Highline and not only that but to be the vice president of the student body. It's been an opportunity that I would not ever want to trade for anything and I'm so excited and I'm so thankful to everybody that helped me get to this point. It takes a village and I really felt the support of people and Tony Castro all kinds of people that have helped me to get to this point and I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart and I'm so excited. Go Highline! Hi, I'm Natasha Garrett. I am getting an associate's degree in psychology. Just want to say thanks to my mom Linda, my son John, my daughter Mikayla, my two nephews EJ and Dominic for all the support for these three long years but I finally made it. Thank God and I'm happy. Hi, my name is DeMar Van. I'm graduating from the chemical dependency program and first and foremost I'd like to thank God because without him none of this would be possible. Next I'd like to thank my family, my wife and my children and I'd like to thank my mother and father who are here visiting from California, my mom, my dad. We did it and I just want to thank all my classmates that helped me along the way. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mamadou Berry. I'm graduating with an associate's degree in computer science. I want to thank all my family, friends and all the people that helped me achieve this goal until here and thank you. Hi, my name is LaCrescia Collier and I'm graduating from Highline's Paralegal program. I want to thank all my friends and family for all of their support throughout the years helping me and guiding me through my school process and I want to thank Highline Community College for giving me the skills and the tools to learn a new trade and to be a better person in life. Hi, my name is Crystal Lee Dandridge Jackson and I would like to thank my daughter J. Jackson, Jasmine, Jamil, Marvin and my sister Chiquita for being here and my graduation. Hi, I kind of excited for today because after I think a year to study in Highline until now and I kind of finished really fast because this time of last year I just come to Highline and right now I'm almost graduate so I want to thank for anyone because I try my best to do it and also I asked for a lot of people to help me so I think that I should thank you for everyone, not just only specific people and I'm gonna do job training after that I joined for to UW. So a little bit nervous but I can ask that I finish Highline and ready to continue with my future. Thank you everyone, I'm Lin Jing Cheng I'm graduating and today kind of exciting and thank you for everyone who helped me before and all the teacher all your friends and especially Amy Moon she gave me that, thank you for giving me the opportunity to work and to learn and thank you everyone. Hey, I'm David and I just want to thank my parents for helping me schedule all of my quarters here because I would have made a mess of it myself and I really want to put it out there that the Running Start program is one of the best things you can do it it gave me this opportunity to get a higher education without having to put forth a lot of money and it's I thank my high school for providing that. Hi, I'm David I would like to start by thanking Access Services for their continued support during my years at Highline and for making my academic success possible. I would like to thank my instructors for teaching me things that developed employment skills and helped me in my own personal projects. I would also like to thank Anime Club for appointing me leader for one year and for the good times we've had together. Good evening everyone, thank you for being here to support all of our graduates tonight. I can't say that my time at Highline has been hard work because you know I ended up getting it done however I managed it but it has been a hard commitment. I'm greatly appreciative of everybody that I work with my family my friends especially Carrie Sudo my mom Dale and my best friends. I greatly appreciate your support and I'm so glad I don't have to go to school anymore. Thank you. My name is Elizabeth and I'm graduating from Highline with an Associate in Biology. I want to thank everybody here who helped me achieve this moment. First of all I want to thank God for making this possible. All glory goes to God and shout out to everybody who works here at Highline. Thank you guys for helping us walk through this. We couldn't do it without you. I also want to thank my family here in Federal Way and back home in Gambia and all other family members here in the USA. My sister Binta Clarice Jarrah and her family, her husband, Uncle Ali, Luke Jarrah and the kids. I love you guys. Thank you for all you do for me. Thanks to everyone here and back to Highline. Shout out to Mesa, crew, PDK and all the clubs and associates and the Student Body Council. Thank you all for all you do. Thanks everybody and yeah you did it! 2015 graduates, thank you all. God bless you. Hi my name is Trisha McFarland Riley and I want to thank my parents and my family and friends for coming and helping and supporting me. I love you all. Hi my name is Tad Aster and today I got a big opportunity to thank you guys all and thanks to people in my life. So first of all I just want to thanks God for always blessing me throughout my life and I want to thanks my family because of that because of you guys. I get to earn a higher education and you guys supporting me always encouraged me to be to be who I am. So I really thanks for for you guys support and encouragement and all the inspirational and all those. So I really want to thanks and I want to thanks my community for accepting me a part of a part of you guys. So thank you and I want to thanks Highline for also accepting me as a family because I feel like I belong in here with the Highline students all the teachers. I because of you guys I now graduated so yeah I just want to thank you to you all and I want to thanks TRIO program for always helping me and because of you guys I graduating in all time I always get so much support and also when I'm in hard time you guys are one of that advising me give me advice for being thinking positively. So I just want to say thank you and well lastly I just want to say congratulations all the Highline students all of you guys congratulations and thank you. Hi my name is Dority Avera and I'm very happy graduating today and I would like to thank my family Sorority Avera Torian Jones thank you guys I couldn't do it without you I just want to say I love you. Hi my name is Nock I'm graduating from the nursing program and I just want to thank my mom and dad and friends and family that supporting me through the program it's good to be graduating yay. Hi my name is Gamaliel a lot of you guys know me by Gamito I just want to say I want to thank God I want to thank my family for finally getting through this it doesn't matter the detours you take in life or how long it takes what matters is what finished and I'm so thankful for everyone's support and I can't wait to get started on my next step on my journey in life thank you and congratulations to everybody else


Because it is incredibly ethnographically complicated. We move on then to Annabelle Gallop, who is undoubtedly known to many of you already, who runs the South East Asia section in the British Library. So if you want to know anything about the resources on Southeast Asia in the British Library, Annabelle is the person to ask. And if you have any knowledge of any Southeast Asian seals, Annabelle would love to hear about it. Over to you. Thank you very much, William, and thank you, Christina, for organising this wonderful and very exciting conference. Just a little bit of background to my work. As William mentioned, I'm curator at the British Library with responsibility for Maritime Southeast Asia, and I work on Malay manuscripts with a particular interest in documents, chance repractice and seals. But I also recently started working on Quran manuscripts, which historically have attracted almost no interest at all, either from historians or literary scholars, philologists, or even ethnographers, anthropologists. The reason being that the Quran is written in Arabic, which two people who work on Southeast Asia are a foreign language and of less interest than, say, Malay works in Malay or Javanese or Bugis or Tausug or anything, you know, a local language. And secondly, because the text of the Quran never changes, so it's not even as if you're looking at an original work in Arabic created or written or produced by a Southeast Asian. So if scholars in the past, particularly even now have come across the Quran, oh, it's just a Quran and it doesn't tend to even rate for discussion. So I've been looking at Quran obviously not at the text, which doesn't change. You know, that's a different field of study throughout the Islamic world and throughout the centuries, but at the Quran as a book and a material object that completely reflects the culture which created it, in which it was created. And through a study of the material, artistic, visual aspects of Quran manuscripts, you can tell where a manuscript comes from and what it says about influencers, networks, connections of the places which produced it. And so I've, in recent years, been working on Quran manuscripts from the Philippines. Now there's considerable literary evidence scattered over the centuries attesting to the presence of Quran manuscripts in the Southern Philippines and their use in religious life. And in the early 18th century, in particular, there's a reference to Quran manuscripts having been brought into the Philippines by foreign Muslims from Makkah, and the quote is, they bring Quran's in Arabic and instruct them and instruct with them. I mean, it's actually quite, it's very, very rare to get documentary evidence of the presence and passage and movement of Quran manuscripts. So for the whole of Southeast Asia, this is quite an early reference and extremely valuable. A century and a half later, there's a very interesting comment from Sebastian Vidal Isolaire, who noted that each settlement in the Poulangi Valley had a Muslim priest or pandeta who generally had made the pilgrimage to Makkah, and one of his tasks was to recite from the Quran copies of which are guarded with great care since they dated from the 16th and 17th centuries and were heavily written in with commentaries. Again, a very engaged, very detailed report with more information in it than one can glean from many writings in English or Dutch sources for the whole of the rest of maritime Southeast Asia. And I will be returning to this particular comment later and another comment on the quality of the calligraphy in Mindanao. But despite all these comments evoking the central row of Quran manuscripts in religious life in Mindanao, until recently we had no idea what these venerable manuscripts might look like for not a single one had been published. And it's really only in the past decade that through a number of research projects and publications that a number of Quran manuscripts from Mindanao have been documented and to date 17 have been located at present. You can see that 11 of them are held in US collections, four in the Philippines all documented thanks to the work of Professor Midori Kawashima and two in Europe. Now all the known manuscripts in US collections were acquired in conditions of armed conflict only in the first decades of the 20th century and the two in Europe, in Berlin and in Bristol are both known to have been acquired in the 1920s and 30s and might have derived from the same sources. I'm certain that in US collections in particular there must be many more which are undiscovered. The one in Charlottesville for example I just came across by Serendipity on Twitter a few months ago but that's how one finds these things these days. So I described some of these Qurans in two articles published in 2011 looking at Mindanao Quran manuscripts held in US collections which was published in the online journal on Mindanao Our Own Voice and in an article in collaboration with Midori Kawashima in 2012 but at that time my research was entirely based on photographic evidence. I'd been sent digital images and I described the Qurans from those digital images but since then in the intervening years I've been lucky enough to have actually been able to inspect personally nine of these 17 manuscripts in Washington DC, Charlottesville, Bristol and Manila and seeing and handling manuscripts is essential for a better understanding of the material features and so it's really only now I feel in a position to say a bit more authoritatively something about the art of the Quran in Mindanao. So overall Quran manuscripts from Mindanao fit fairly and squarely into the broad family of Quran manuscripts of the Malay world, Maritime Southeast Asia, Nusantara, whatever you like to call it. These manuscripts are all generally rather plain with each page containing around 15 lines of text could be 13, 17 usually an odd number written in black ink and set within ruled text frames verses are separated with small round circles drawn with a compass which may be coloured in. Divisions of the Quranic text into Jews or 30 parts of equal length are often indicated in the margins through a variety of graphic effects and further divisions of the Jews i.e. this 30th division into half quarters and eighths may also be indicated as you can see on the right here. It's the Thunman, it's an eighth of a Jews which is indicated with a nice foliate ornament. So this is the manuscript which is in Virginia, the University of Virginia Library. Now some manuscripts in Quran manuscripts in the southern Philippines as elsewhere in the Malay world have decorated double frames at key locations in the text. These frames usually frame the first two pages, the opening of the Quranic text and this particular manuscript is sort of the archetypal Philippine Quran. It's the Quran of Bayang which is very well known by now. There's a long story about it and I advise you to read Midori's 2012 book for the full story of how this manuscript was captured in Bayang in 1910. I think that's right, 1910, 1908 was something taken to America, spent some decades in Chicago, was returned to Manila, was going to be returned to Mindanao and a storm diverted it. It went into Malacan Young Palace and disappeared from view and after the people power revolution nothing was known of it but it's finally re-emerged and I understand is now designated the national treasure in the National Museum. So these are the opening pages. These key frames are also found sometimes at the end of the manuscript and so this is another manuscript from Mindanao showing the decorated frames at the end and some of the finest or the most well decorated manuscripts have frames in the middle which interestingly is not always in the same location. So this is one of the manuscripts in the Smithsonian. It marks the beginning of the Suratal Isra but in a couple of other manuscripts you find a different Surah in the Quran marked and this is the Suratal Kaaf marked in the middle of the manuscript. Now all these decorated frames that I've shown bear witness to the overarching influence of what in another publication I've called the Sulawesi diaspora geometric style of Quranic manuscript art which is characterised by strictly geometrical constructs using horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines and circles and part circles. So what you don't get is the sort of sinuous lines and ogival archers which you get in many other parts of Southeast Asia. The lines are straight lines and the round bits are sort of geometric circles. The influence of this Sulawesi school is felt all over the Malay archipelago so it's not unique to find the influence in Mindanao and I wouldn't suggest that it speaks of a particularly strong Sulawesi link because you find the Sulawesi influence all over and here's an example of a Quran which was copied in Qedda in 1757 and it's now held in the Sultan's Mosque in Riyau so showing the networks that existed then but also the extent of Sulawesi influence. But nonetheless it was of a special interest in me when Elsa Clavé shared a photograph she had taken of a collection of manuscripts near Davao in Mindanao in 2007 and this Quran manuscript, even though it doesn't show the decorated frames it's recognisably an absolutely standard Sulawesi Quran manuscript of the same ilk as the one in Panyangat now and so it does show that Sulawesi style Qurans were at some time in the past present in Mindanao and so the connections and the influences are quite clear. Visually impressive though some of these Mindanao Qurans are I wouldn't say that there is a distinctive Mindanao style of manuscript illumination rather the Mindanao identity is manifest in certain details and nuances as first outlined in my 2012 article and I have no reason to change that opinion now namely a particular emphasis on the vegetal scroll, the foliate scroll you see filling in the borders around the text and this emphasis on the scroll motif is perhaps sort of more marked in Mindanao than elsewhere in South East Asia. There are certainly occasional unusual features for example in this manuscript in the Smithsonian I think this is one of the finest examples of decorated frames I've seen from Mindanao we see some ornaments in solid black pigment now that's absolutely very unusual indeed I've never seen it anywhere else in South East Asia where it's black is usually only present in the form of black ink to outline other sort of coloured elements. Another very small decorative motif which is so far only seen in Mindanao is even in sort of rather simpler Qur'an's occasional placement of tendrils or foliate motifs in the corners of the decorated frame so that's another what you could call a Mindanao feature. However in this presentation I'd like to focus on some more strikingly unique features of Mindanao Qur'an manuscripts which relate to the materiality and use of the book rather than its decoration. Now the first of this is covers of solid pieces of wood jointed by means of small drilled holes through which string is threaded to hold the pieces of wood together. So this is unique in Southeast Asia no other Southeast Asian manuscript tradition has manuscripts with covers of solid wood apart from say buttock manuscripts but I'm talking about the Islamic manuscript tradition and Qur'an manuscripts so this is the same example which is opened out and you can see how the string is threaded through the holes and this particular example in Virginia has got some decorative motifs on it. So far there are four of these manuscripts out of these 17 are definitely known to have wooden covers because the covers are not joined to the manuscript they work as a protective outer cover it's entirely possible that many more had these covers which have now been lost but these are the other three examples so the manuscript in Bristol at the top and you can see also the joints and the threads here. One these two are in Mindanao this is now covered with a cloth wrapper and this sad in a very sorry state a very important Qur'an which is now in total fragments but it still has its cover. Anyway so that is a unique feature of Mindanao Qur'an manuscripts. The other distinctive feature I'd like to focus on relates to the paper used. Most Southeast Asian Qur'an manuscripts are written on high quality European paper although in Java you do get Dluang which is a locally made paper from the beaten bark of the mulberries tree but of the Mindanao Qur'ans only three of the 17 are written on European paper four are written on Chinese paper. Now Chinese paper is and was very widely used in Southeast Asia it's not watermarked like European paper so it's more difficult to identify but one of the most characteristic features is the presence of visible brush strokes across the surface because the paper was made in the Chinese method elsewhere using an aqueous solution and a paper mould on which sheets of paper were formed from the aqueous solution. When the paper drained out the paper was lifted and pasted against a wall using brushes it was pasted onto a wall to dry and what you can see these kind of striations are the strokes from the brush in the drying process and it's one of the key features of which identify paper as Chinese paper and so that's quite a useful way of finding out but what we also find in some manuscripts from Mindanao is Chinese paper stamps and these are the marks of the Chinese paper maker and Midori has found these in other non-Kuranic manuscripts in Mindanao and this is the means by way I found this Quran in Virginia because there was a Twitter conversation about these Chinese paper stamps and interestingly enough you never get as you know a figural decoration in Chinese paper stamps in Quran manuscripts but it just so happens that the golden lion seal is stamped on this Quran which I think makes it one of only two exceptions I've ever found of a figural illustration in a Quran manuscript but the most interesting finding in terms of paper is that over half nine of the 17 manuscripts of Quran manuscripts in Mindanao are written on what appears to be a locally made fibrous paper now this is very important because to date there has been no evidence at all of the making of paper in any Islamic manuscript culture in Southeast Asia Javanese paper, the dluwang which I mentioned earlier technically does not qualify as paper because it's not made from an aqueous solution it's simply sheets of tree bark which are pounded and polished until they form a writing surface but the definition of paper is a writing support made from an aqueous solution which is then made into sheets and dried and so it seems to be that in the Philippines is the only Islamic manuscript culture in Southeast Asia which made paper even in a recent book on paper in the Philippines by Thomas I've only seen references to the 20th century making of paper but these manuscripts date at least to the 18th, 19th century and possibly even earlier so I think there's really a big area of study there it's quite crude, you can see the surface it's very fibrous but you can also see the shape of the mould but you can actually see the lines of the mould and once you know what you're looking for it's then very easy to identify it when you come across it so finally the last aspect I would like to talk about in these Quran manuscripts is they bear witness to a very close engagement with the text so Sebastian Vidal mentioned heavily written in with commentaries and there certainly many of the Quran's have quite a lot of annotation you get showing, testifying to a close reading of the text when words have been left out you can see they've been inserted or sometimes the spelling is corrected when it hasn't been correct before the other thing that the manuscripts testify to is despite the very poor condition they are found in today no doubt related to the fact that they were captured in armed conflict many of the manuscripts show signs of very great care and efforts at restoration and repair in the past you can see that these old tears have been sewn to repair them in this manuscript and this is in a different manuscript so it's sewing repairs was obviously one technique that was used another technique that was used was pasting over tears so in this manuscript on the left hand side you can see a tear which is now made whole because on the right hand side this is the reverse of the same folio a paper patch has been put there and fixed with adhesive and presumably the adhesive was white or transparent at the time but it has now blackened, it's probably some sort of resin-less adhesive and you see this feature in many manuscripts many evidence of repairing manuscripts manuscripts of course do get battered and pages get lost especially from the beginning so another thing you can see in a number of these Quran manuscripts is the replacement of pages, especially at the beginning so this is a very fine Quran which has lost about five pages at the beginning and these have been restored in a much less competent hand but nonetheless it shows you that this Quran was designed to be red whole and even the replacement pages, one of them was decorated it's lost the first page, this would have been the left hand side of a main page and the same situation, so it doesn't just happen once but in the Quran from Bristol you can see those are the original pages of the bulk of the Quran on the left and the additional and the new replacement first two pages which have been added on so I'm coming to the end now and I'm going back to the quote by Sebastian Vidal about he mentioned Qurans dating from the 16th and 17th century now no Quran in Southeast Asia has yet been identified from the 16th century even the 17th century is very early most of the Qurans I've shown you here probably date from the 19th or 18th century but there's one manuscript in the Smithsonian that seems to be on paleographic grounds from the appearance of the handwriting alone to be considerably older than the others the decorative elements are later editions but the hand itself bears some resemblance to Javanese Quran manuscripts of the 17th century and this is another heavily repaired manuscript with lots of later editions so in conclusion, Mindanaw Quran sit firmly within the larger family of Southeast Asian Quran manuscripts but there are certain unique aspects of the material culture and the books themselves bear witness to particularly careful usage and care through the centuries with evidence of repair and restoration but finally I'd like to reflect that just ten years ago not a single Quran from Mindanaw had yet been published but today that same complete dearth of information applies to Sulu not a single Quran manuscript from Sulu is known I don't know what they look like I'm going to find that they're similar to Mindanaw Quran or reflecting a completely different tradition so we live in hope so much has been found in the past ten years and we look forward to more coming up in the future thank you so if any of you know of any Qurans please contact Annabel yes a quick question at the back as we change over in contemporary usage in Indonesia Pandeta tends to refer more to a Christian priest so I would simply need to go back into the context I'm not suggesting that the holy men themselves used that word but it was applied to them but it's a lone word in Malay which is the lingua franca of the whole of the archipelago but it would be interesting to work out its first usage to see whether it was applied generically to priests of any of the great religions or whether it was when the meaning sort of began to travel Muslims in Champa in Vietnam use the term Guru so we get this as well this migration of terms