Ibero-Romance Handwriting in Arabic Script (IRHAS): A First Step to Manuscript Text Recognition in Spanish Ajami (Aljamiado)

NAME	LANGUAGE	PERIOD	TYPE	NB. OF DOCUMENTS	NB. OF PAGES	NB. OF LINES	ANNOTATION METHODOLOGY	DEPOSIT
RASAM 1	Arabic	18^th–19^th c.	Handwritten	3	300	7,540	(Vidal-Gorène et al., 2021)	https://github.com/calfa-co/rasam-dataset
TariMa	Arabic	17^th–19^th c.	Handwritten, lithograph	28	120	2,364		https://github.com/calfa-co/tarima/tree/main/docs
RASAM 2	Arabic and Berber	17^th–19^th c.	Handwritten	15	250	3,750		https://github.com/calfa-co/rasahttps://zenodo.org/records/21824878m-dataset
Ajami Handwritten Text Recognition Dataset	Hausa	20^th c.	Handwritten, lithograph, printed	24	344	5,337	(Yousuf, Aminu, et al., 2026)	10.5281/zenodo.15691685
	Fulfulde	18^th–20^th c.	Handwritten	5	56	797	(Yousuf, Aminu, et al., 2026)
	Wolof	20^th c.	Handwritten, printed	19	313	4,743	(Yousuf, Diagne, Høgel, et al., 2026)
IRHAS	Aragonese, Spanish, and Arabic	15^th–17^th c.	Handwritten	19	663	10,825	10.5281/zenodo.21824878	10.5281/zenodo.21824878

Table 2

Composition of IRHAS dataset version 1.⁹

CITY	INSTITUTION	CALL NUMBER	FOLIATION	TEXTUAL GENRE	PAGES	LINES	CHARACTERS	ESTIMATED DATE OF COPY
Cambridge	Cambridge University Library	Dd.9.49	1r–9v	Religious treatise	20	476	35,046	c. 1608
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/4871	1v–11r	Religious narrative and sayings	22	625	51,763	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5252	8v–28r	Religious treatise	40	729	41,626	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5254	1v–21r	Narrative	40	680	39,749	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5301	2r–14v	Narrative	28	415	18,596	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5302	1r–24r	Religious polemic	48	675	23,803	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5305	42v–61r	Narrative	40	748	44,660	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5313	182r–195v	Narrative	30	370	11,877	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	MSS/5354	1v–22r	Religious sayings	42	620	23,404	1500–1599
Madrid	Biblioteca Nacional de España	RES/247	1v–21r	Narrative poetry	40	566	24,931	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/1	1v–11r	Religious treatise	20	343	13,074	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/8	1v–10r	Religious narratives and sayings	20	350	17,038	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/53	189r–194r	Narrative	11	214	12,549	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/53	24v–28v	Religious narratives and sayings	9	177	11,058	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/55	21v–44r	Narrative	46	411	11,305	1500–1599
Madrid	Bib. T. Navarro Tomás, CCHS–CSIC	Resc/62	2r–11v	Religious treatise	20	404	20,812	1500–1599
New York	Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library	Or. 515	4v–14r	Religious treatise	20	373	17,127	c. 1589–1591
Paris	Bibliothèque nationale de France	arabe 1163	5v–10v, 60v–65r, 113vr–117v	Religious treatise, sapiential poetry, sermon	36	570	29,091	before 1567
Saragossa	Fondo Documental Histórico de las Cortes de Aragón	L528	1r–v, 2v–47v	Calendar treatise	85	1,271	53,389	1500–1599
Saragossa	Fondo Documental Histórico de las Cortes de Aragón	L528	115r–121v	Sermon	12	185	7,670	1500–1599
Saragossa	Fondo Documental Histórico de las Cortes de Aragón	L536	63v–72r	Narrative	18	329	19,593	c. 1481
Saragossa	Fondo Documental Histórico de las Cortes de Aragón	L536	123r–131r	Religious polemic	16	294	22,138	c. 1481

Samples of handwriting variation (details from BNE MSS/4871, BNE MSS/5252, BNE MSS/5301, BNE MSS/5302, BNE Res.247, CU Or. 515 Folio, CSIC Resc/1, CSIC Resc/8, CSIC Resc/62, CUL dd.9.49, FDHCA L536).

Examples of final *hāʾ* and final hooks (details of BNE MSS/5252, BNE MSS/5301, BNE MSS/5354, CSIC Resc/55, CSIC Resc/62, CU Or.515 Folio, CUL dd.9.49, FDHCA L528, FDHCA L536).

Table 3

Results of a 5-fold test of IRHAS.

EVALUATIVE FOLD	PAGES	LINES	CHARACTERS	VALIDATION CAR	TEST CAR	ACDC CAR	TARIMA CAR
Fold 1	148	2,246	111,579	94.90%	92.63%	41.50%	36.66%
Fold 2	151	2,358	104,652	94.60%	92.96%	44.94%	39.87%
Fold 3	118	2,066	111,014	95.00%	91.82%	39.33%	34.86%
Fold 4	116	2,014	109,574	95.00%	92.62%	42.36%	37.95%
Fold 5	130	2,141	113,480	94.70%	92.67%	40.51%	35.30%
Average	133	2,165	110,059.8	94.84%	92.54%	41.73%	36.93%