Oxford LibGuides: Manuscripts: Asian and Middle Eastern: Middle East

Contact the curators

Alasdair Watson
Phone: +44 (0)1865 279984

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Subject guide

A Middle East collections subject guide
A short online subject guide to the Bodleian's collections of Middle Eastern manuscripts and rare books.

Fihrist - Online Catalogue

Fihrist - Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World
This online union catalogue contains descriptions of more than 15,000 manuscripts from Library collections in the UK, including the Bodleian Libraries.

Links to Digital Collections of Manuscripts

The links below are to some of the Library's Digital Collections.

Digital Bodleian
The Bodleian Libraries' main portal for its Digital Collections

Arabic

All links here are to a digitized version of the printed catalogue, or to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

A new catalogue of Arabic manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, vol. 1 Medicine
by Emilie Savage-Smith, 2011 (series editor Colin Wakefield)
Bibliothecae Bodleianae codicum manuscriptorum orientalium ... catalogus. Volume 1 [digitised catalogue best viewed in Firefox or Chrome]
by J. Uri (Oxford, 1787). (Contains descriptions in Latin of 105 Christian Arabic and 1,219 Islamic Arabic manuscripts; author index only).
Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum orientalium Bibliothecae Bodleianae: Arabicos complectens, Vol. 2 [Digitised catalogue]
by A. Nicoll & E.B. Pusey (Oxford, 1835). (Contains descriptions in Latin of a further 82 Christian Arabic and 423 Islamic Arabic manuscripts, as well as copious amendments to Uri's catalogue; includes title and author index for both this and the Uri catalogue).
The Arabic musical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
by H.G. Farmer (London, 1925).
‘Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: the Seventeenth-Century Collections’
by Colin Wakefield in 'The Arabick Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England' ed. G.A. Russell (Leiden, 1994), pp. 128-46. Bodleian shelfmark: BOD. M94.E02737
Unpublished card catalogue: additions to Nicoll/Pusey
For a complete record of the Bodleian's Arabic manuscripts there is a separate card catalogue in the Charles Wendell David Reading Room. This is a summary catalogue, in transliteration, which includes all the manuscripts described in the two printed catalogues and, in addition, entries for all Arabic manuscripts acquired subsequent to the publication of Nicoll/Pusey's catalogue of 1835. Printed instructions for the use of the card catalogue are provided in the Reading Room.

Armenian

All links here are to a digitized version of the printed catalogue, or to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

Catalogue of Armenian manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
by S. Baronian & F.C. Conybeare (Oxford, 1918). (124 manuscripts are described). [Digitized copy via Archive.org]
Catalogue of early Armenian books, 1512-1850
by V. Nersessian, London, 1980. (A union catalogue of the holdings in the British Library and the Bodleian Library).

Coptic

All links here are to a digitized version of the printed catalogue, or to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

Bibliothecae Bodleianae codicum manuscriptorum orientalium ... catalogus. Volume 1 [digitised catalogue best viewed in Firefox or Chrome]
by J. Uri (Oxford, 1787). (Contains descriptions in Latin of 105 Christian Arabic and 1,219 Islamic Arabic manuscripts; author index only).
Catalogue of the Clarendon Press Sahidic fragments deposed in the Bodleian Library (manuscript slips)
by Henri Hyvernat, 1878.
Kahle, 1954.
Handwritten notes by Paul Kahle on various Arabic manuscripts. Available on request from the Curator in the Charles Wendell David Reading Room.

Egyptian

All links here are to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

‘The Egyptian Papyri in the Bodleian Library’
by Colin Wakefield in Bodleian Library Record 14 (1991), pp. 94-7.
‘The Egyptian Funerary Papyri in the Bodleian Library’
by Marc Coenen in Bodleian Library Record 16 (1999), pp. 450-69.

Georgian

All links here are to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

Catalogue of the Wardrop Collection and of other Georgian books and manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
by D. Barrett (Oxford, 1973).

Persian

All links here are to a digitized version of the printed catalogue, or to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.

Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushto manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, part 1.
Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushto manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, part 2.
Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushto manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, part 3.
Beeston, A. F. L. (Alfred Felix Landon); Ethé, Hermann, 1844-1917.; Sachau, Eduard,1845-1930; Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindûstânî, and Pushtû manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; at the Clarendon Press 1889-1953 [Digitized Versions from The Internet Archive and MENADOC]
Iranian Oral History Project
The Department of Oriental Collections hosts a set of the tapes and transcripts of Harvard's Iranian Oral History Project. There is a copy of the Reference Guide to the Iranian Oral History Collection and two volumes of Indexes in the Charles Wendell David Reading Room. Readers must complete and sign a form requesting permission to consult each narrator's memoirs. Access to the memoirs of certain individuals is still subject to an embargo.

Turkish

All links here are to a digitized version of the printed catalogue, or to the SOLO library record for the book/journal, which gives further details and location information.