The Islamic Heritage Project

Here's a new resource about which I'm very excited: the Islamic Heritage Project is a digital collection of over 145,000 pages, including more than 260 manuscripts, 50+ maps, and nearly 300 printed texts from Harvard's library and museum collections. Materials date from the 13th to 20th centuries, and represent many regions (including Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and South, Southeast, and Central Asia), various languages (primarily Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish, as well as Urdu, Chagatai, Malay, Gujarati, Indic languages, and several Western languages), and numerous subjects [including religious texts and commentaries, Sufism, history, geography, law, and the sciences (astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine), poetry and literature, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, calligraphy, dictionaries and grammar, biographies, and autobiographical works]. The database is searchable by keyword, title, name/creator, subject, and form/genre. It is also browsable by title, author/creator, country of origin, language, and by selected topics. Many of the materials in the collection are unique.

The project was produced by two coordinating partners: the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University and the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. It was made possible by the generous support of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. This is a treasury of research material and a true jewel of an online collection, and I hope you will explore it at length.

At your service,
Cheryl