Onomasticon Arabicum Project about future of arabistics

Abstract

Up to the recent times the Orientalism was, so to say, closed for all technical innovations surpassing the traditional reprographical techniques. Acting under the time pressure the Italian Islamist Leone Caetani (1869-1935) introduced a neu and systematic approach into Arab - Islamic historiography by the publication of hand­books which in form of alphabetic registers include all anthroponyms and toponyms contained in the principal historical, biographical and geographical works (the prin­ted ones and the manuscripts) connected with Islam. This index was titled Onosticon Arabicum. The article by the esteemed orientalist Darko Tanasković discusses the fate of this important project and the scientific meetings related to it because of the need for the processing of the data contained in their index by using a computer.