Middle East & Islamic Studies: Getting Started

• International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies
• International Journal of Middle East Studies
• Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (JMEWS)

Find Images in:

• AP Images
• ArchNet
• ARTstor
• Artnet.com
• Insight Visual Collections
• Oxford Art Online
• A Guide to Online Visual Sources in Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Stuides by Amanda Hannoosh Steinberg

Find Theses in:

• DART-Europe E-theses Portal
• EThOS
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations
• Theses Canada

Catalogues

Fihrist

This catalogue provides a searchable interface to basic manuscript descriptions from some of the major manuscript collections in the UK. With the continuing contribution of manuscript records from UK libraries, Fihrist aims to become a union catalogue for manuscripts in Arabic script. Currently, only a portion of the records contain Arabic script elements.

The Dayan Center Bibliographical Database

Since 1979, the Library of the Moshe Dayan Center has electronically cataloged articles, pamphlets and occasional publications on the Middle East published in English, French, and Arabic. The catalog now consists of over 300,000 entries.

Moshe Dayan Center (Tel Aviv U.) - Arabic Press Archive Catalog

The Arabic Press Archive of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel-Aviv University is one of the largest and the most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary Arabic-language newspapers in the world. It continues to expand, in both digital and hard copy form.

National Library of Tunisia: Catalog ‪فهرس المكتبة

Catalog of the National Library of Tunisia, this includes old Tunisian newspapers & other periodicals. Digitized documents may be available. In French and Arabic.

• Annual Reviews
• The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia
• Arabic Almanac (Searchable Arabic Dictionaries)
• Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
• Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought
• Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an
• Brockelmann Online
• Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology
• Cambridge Companion to Muhammad
• Cambridge Companion to the Qurʼān
• The Cambridge History of Modern Arabic Literature
• The Cambridge History of Egypt
• The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7
• The Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 1A
• The Cambridge History of Turkey
• Christian-Muslim Relations: a Bibliographical History
• Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia (free)
• Country Studies (Library of Congress)
• إن أمهات الكتب العربية المطبوعة من المكتبة البريطانية / Early Arabic printed books from the British Library
• Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers 
• Encyclopædia of Islam (connected via BrillOnline portal)
• Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World 
• Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media
• Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures
• Encyclopædia Iranica
• Encyclopædia Judaica 
• Encyclopædia of the Qur'ān (connected via BrillOnline portal
• The Grove encyclopedia of Islamic art and architecture
• Kotobarabia : Arab leaders, historians and philosophers collection
• Kotobarabia modern Arab renaissance collection
• Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon
• Literature Resource Center
• The Oxford encyclopedia of the Islamic world
• Oxford Bibliographies Online: Islamic Studies
• Oxford Dictionaries Online Arabic
• The Oxford history of Islam
• The Oxford encyclopedia of Islam and politics
• The Oxford encyclopedia of Islam and women
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam.
• The Statesman's Year-Book (1864-)World Almanac of Islamism (American Foreign Policy Council)

Note: For help with off-Campus access to databases, please see here.

Find Articles in:

• Anthropology Plus
• Art & Architecture source
• ATLA Religion Database
• Bibliography of Asian Studies
• Central Asian Survey
• Historical Abstracts
• Index Islamicus
• International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ)
• JSTOR

Find Primary Documents in:

• Afghanistan and the U.S., 1945-1963: Records of the U.S. State Dept. Central Classified Files
• Chatham House Online Archive
• Confidential Print (British): Middle East (1812-1969)
• Democracy in Turkey, 1950-1959: Records of the U.S. State Dept. Classified Files
• Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports 1949-1996
• Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
• Foreign Relations of the United States (US State Dept. Office of the Historian)
• Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1861-1960 (U Wisconsin)
• U.K. Parliamentary Papers
• Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1994
• The King and the People in Morocco, 1950-1959: U.S. State Department Records on the Internal Affairs of Morocco
• Middle East Online. Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations 1917-1970
• Middle East Online. Series 2: Iraq, 1914-1974
• Digital National Security Archive
• United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 1946-
• United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1946-
• United Nations Official Documents System (ODS)
• U.S. and Iraqi Relations: U.S. Technical Aid, 1950-1958
• U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009
• U.S. Middle East Peace Policy and America's Role in the Middle East Peace Process, 1989-1993
• World News Connection
• Yearbook of the United Nations, 1946-2005

Repositories

AMEEL (Yale)

AMEEL is a Web-based portal and a digital collection of information for the study of the Middle East, including its history, culture, development, and contemporary face. Within this portal, Yale University Library offers the OACIS serials database and integrates existing scholarly digital content with newly digitized resources to make such materialS easier to find and use efficiently and freely.

Farabi Digital Library

From IRCICA, Farabi includes several collections such as: Ottoman Yearbooks, Voyages in Middle East, Korans, and much more.

Iraqi Jewish Archive

Over 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents were discovered in the flooded basement of the Iraqi intelligence headquarters by a US Army team. The remarkable survival of this written record of Iraqi Jewish life provides an unexpected opportunity to better understand this 2,500-year-old Jewish community. Ceated by NARA and partners.

Universität Halle-Wittenberg: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (ULB): Sondersammelgebiet Vorderer Orient

The digitization project is still ongoing, but is already a most valuable resource, with over 3000 titles available. They started with the holdings of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in Halle, which includes much 19th-century material, both European publications and Middle Eastern ones. At Halle they have also digitized Jacob Landau's important Turkish research library which contains many Ottoman publications.

Islamic Heritage Project - Harvard University

Contains not only important MSS, but also a nearly equal number of printed texts (over 275). These date almost entirely from before 1923 and cover a wide range of subjects, languages and places of publication.

Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn: Bibliothek Goussen

This is a specialized collection of Oriental Christian texts, including 226 in Arabic. It comprises both European and Middle Eastern editions, most of them fully digitized and available online. This is a valuable resource, in view of the important part played by Christian Arabic books, produced both by missionaries and by Arab Christians, in the early development of Arabic printing.

المكتبة الرقمية المغربية - La Bibliothèque Numérique Marocaine

The Moroccan Digital Library, created by the Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (BNRM), has a special section devoted to lithographed books, containing digital images of over 30 of them. Almost all printing in Morocco was lithographic until well into the 20C, so these are of particular historic importance. Users can choose between Arabic and French interfaces.

Milli Kütüphane: Süreli Yayınlar Bilgi Sistemi

This database of Ottoman newspapers and periodicals is maintained by the Turkish National Library in Ankara. It contains full-text images of a wide range of serials from 1840 (Ceride-i Havadis) to 1928.

İslam Araştimaları Merkezi

The Islamic Studies Centre in Üsküdar offers three online collections of Ottoman printed materials in facsimile images:1) Salnâmeler: the official yearbooks, important sources of statistical and other information on all the Ottoman provinces. Over 520 are available here; 2) Osmanlıca Risaleler: over 2400 pamphlets or “treatises” in Ottoman Turkish, mainly on political, religious and educational subjects; 3) Osmanlıca Makaleler: articles from 20 Ottoman Turkish periodicals. The facsimiles are provided as PDF files.

Duke University Libraries: Ottoman Texts on IA

Duke offers a collection of 213 Ottoman Turkish books on the Internet Archive platform. These include not only classical literature but also works of popular fiction, religion, and law.

World Digital Library: Middle East & North Africa

Expand the 'Place' filter list on the left-hand side to select items by country.

is a blog which gathers and distributes information on materials relating to the Middle East housed in open access repositories (OAR) around the world.

Arab Knowledge Reports (UNDP)

Digital Islam

Research on Middle East, Islam and digital media.

Euro-Islam.info

Euro-Islam.info is an active network of researchers and scholars who conduct comparative research on Islam and Muslims in the West and disseminate key information to politicians, media, and the public. Sponsored by GSRL Paris/CNRS France and Harvard University, the Euro-Islam research network consists of over forty researchers and hosts over 50,000 unique visitors each month. The site is recognized in political and media circles as the most reliable online reference for Islam in Europe.

Euro-Islam.info: Bibliography

League of  Arab States
جامعة الدول العربية

The Arab League or League of the Arab States is a regional intergovernmental organization of Arab States in the Middle East and North Africa formed in Cairo on March 22, 1945. Seven states formed the League, defining its main goals as to: "draw closer the relations between member States and co-ordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries."

To find materials in Duke's Libraries about the Arab League, click here.