Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies: Free online resources

Available freely, this online bibliography contains references to theses, books, articles, papers and on-going projects that relate to research into Ottoman culture. It aims to serve as the principal reference for scholars working on Turkey and the Middle East, as well as for specialists studying other medieval and early/modern literatures.

Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī  = The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia

Compiled and published by the Centre for The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, the Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī has been described as one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date sources on Islam and the Muslim world. Quranic Studies, Doctrines, Theology (Kalam), Jurisprudence, Principles of Jurisprudence, Hadith, Elements, Islamic figures, Ethics, Religions, Heresiography, Logic, Philosophy, Mysticism, Literature, Art, Anthropology, Architecture and Islamic Monuments, History, Geography, Mathematics, Astronomy and Medicine are all subjects covered by the encyclopaedia. An abridged English edition is being provided by Brill, in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica is a multi-disciplinary reference work and research tool designed to record the facts of Iranian history and civilization. It focuses on the land, life, culture and history of all Iranian peoples and their interaction with other societies.

From the biographies of notable men and women in every field of endeavor to descriptions of all Iranian cities and monuments (ancient and modern), from oil installations to major banks, from Zoroastrian scriptures to Jewish shrines and Islamic rituals, from Persian classics to modern novels, from Iranian flora and fauna to Persian music and folklore, from philosophy and mysticism to calligraphy and architecture, all aspect of life in Iranian and related cultural areas are studied and described in articles presenting the current state of research in their texts and appended bibliographies.

As of 2023, two different online versions of the encyclopedia are being published, this one by the Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation (EIF), and another by the Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies and Brill. The latter version includes entries from Brill's printed fascicles XVI/4 onward, which are not recognised by EIF.

The Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) or TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, is a 44-volume work published by the Turkish religious foundation (Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı) and completed between 1988 and 2013. It is now completely available online. The articles are searchable and downloadable in PDF format.

The Goussen library collection is a specialist library for oriental

church history. It contains prints in Western classical and modern

languages, but predominantly prints in oriental languages such as

Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Arabic, Armenian and Georgian languages from

the 16th to the 20th century (the focus is on the 18th and the 19th

century). The former owner Heinrich Goussen (1863 - 1927) collected

nearly every print within the language groups that had ever been

published about the subject. The collection contains numerous rare or

valuable oriental prints. There could hardly a collection be put

together as completely as here, not even from the holdings of large

European libraries.

In 2007 the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn digitised approx.

850 prints of the Goussen library collection under a programme of the

State of North Rhine-Westphalia to preserve its holdings. It includes

all titles published in Europe until 1800, all publications in the

original language as well as all publications that were published

outside Europe. For copyright reasons the year 1900 was chosen as the

last year of publication to be included in the digitisation project. The

digitisation was generally conducted by means of a microfilm, which was

produced first. Books with special features (red and black print of the

texts, items with illustrations, interleaved copies as well as all

prints published until 1800) were digitised in colour.

A collection of Coptic prints, part of the Goussen library specialising in oriental church history. It contains 22 titles, with images, in western classical and modern languages, as well as in Coptic and Arabic, and includes lexica, catalogues, histories, and travel books from the 17th to the 20th century.

The Iranian Oral History Project was launched at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies in the fall of 1981. The project provides scholars studying the contemporary political history of Iran with primary source material consisting of personal accounts of individuals who either played major roles in important political events and decisions from the 1920s to the 1970s or witnessed these events from close range.

During the last nineteen years, the project has recorded the memoirs of 134 individuals, comprising approximately 900 hours of tape and 18,000 pages of transcript at a cost of over $800,000. The collection embodies the most comprehensive chronicle of eye-witness reports of modern Iran by some of the key figures who defined her history.

This project led by the University of Manchester Library provides digital versions of Iranian newspapers and periodicals many of which have previously been difficult to access. The provision of this collection supports the work of students and researchers interested in modern and contemporary Iranian history by enabling them to explore key events as they happened. The collection’s main coverage is: the premiership of Mohammad Mossadegh and the August 1953 coup d'état against his government (1950-53), the 1979 Revolution, and the late 1990s/early 2000s ‘reform era’ of former President Mohammad Khatami. Containing more than 12,000 pages, the collection is freely accessible without restriction.

The contents of the database include mainly the theses & dissertations and articles in Arabic educational journals published in Arab countries since 2007. The bib records include abstracts and the full text for some electronic Arabic journals and some electronic theses.