Middle Eastern / South Asian Studies Indexes And Resources

The Melvyl catalog allows users to search for documents held by the UC Davis and other UC libraries.  When configured for “Libraries Worldwide,” the catalog allows users to find documents (books, media, reports, etc.) held by libraries throughout North America and Europe.

Index to literature on Islam, the Middle East and Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, and Muslim minorities elsewhere. Includes citations to over 2,000 journals, conference proceedings, monographs, and book reviews from 1906 to present.

“The Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition) sets out the present state of our knowledge of the Islamic World. It is a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only for the religion, but also for the believers and the countries in which they live.It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and fauna of the various countries and on the history, topography and monuments of the major towns and cities. In its geographical and historical scope it encompasses the old Arabo-Islamic empire, the Islamic countries of Iran, Central Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Indonesia, the Ottoman Empire and all other Islamic countries.”

The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (EWIC) is an interdisciplinary, trans-historical, and global project. It provides critical essays on women, Muslim and non-Muslim, and Islamic cultures in every region where there have been significant Muslim populations. Coverage includes the period just before the rise of Islam to the present.

Print volumes of the Encyclopedia are available in H/SS Reference, 2nd floor Shields Library, call number HQ1170.E53 2003

This website also touches on the areas of Arabic and Religion (focusing on Western religions). It is particularly intended to be of use for non-Muslim and Muslim students and teachers at all levels as well for members of the general public who wish to get a non-polemical and non-sectarian view of Islam and the diverse perspectives of Muslims (including Sunni Islam, Shi’ism, and Sufism, et al.) and to a lesser extent of Judaism and Christianity.

“The field of Islamic Studies is both wide-reaching and dynamic. It includes the range of foundational documents, traditions, institutions, and history of Muslims in various countries and regions throughout the world from the origins of Islam to the present day. This interdisciplinary field therefore includes history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, Arabic language and literature, as well as literatures in other languages including Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, and remains responsive to new discoveries, interpretations, ideologies and theories. . . . Top scholars in the field have contributed on their areas of expertise, so that users will understand how the field is organized and why it developed in the way it did. The articles present a guided tour through the key literature on each topic, providing context for its development, and a balanced overview of the major issues within a given topic.”

Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān (EQ) combines alphabetically-arranged articles about the contents of the Qur’ān. It is an encyclopedic dictionary of qur’ānic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history and exegesis extended with essays on the most important themes and subjects within qur’ānic studies. With nearly 1000 entries in 5 volumes, the EQ is the first comprehensive, multi-volume reference work on the Qur’ān to appear in a Western language.

“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.”

Indexes worldwide publications on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, television, and theater from 1923 to the present.

This database is the combined archive  of two bibliographic indexes, Pascal and Francis. They provide multidisciplinary and multilingual coverage of humanities and social sciences. Source documents include journal articles, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and reports.  It was produced and is now hosted as an open access resource by the Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

BASE is one of the world’s most voluminous search engines especially for academic open access web resources. BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.

The Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker is regarded throughout the world as the premier collection of German writing. The Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker series has been in publication since 1981. It covers the works of major authors spanning eleven centuries and includes historical, philosophical, theological, political and art history texts. Collections of essays, speeches and other non-literary material add context and background material. As every individual text is edited to the same high standard, you can rely on the quality and accuracy of each edition and the collection as a whole.

The Philosopher's Index is a bibliographic database covering worldwide research in all areas of philosophy.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a religious organization, international in its scope, with branches in over 185 countries in Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australasia, and Europe. This is the most dynamic denomination of Islam in modern history, with worldwide membership exceeding tens of millions. The Community offers a clear presentation of Islamic wisdom, philosophy, morals and spirituality as derived from the Holy Qur’an and the practice (Sunnah) of the Holy Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be on him). The Ahmadiyya Community was established in 1889 by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) in the Punjab, India. He claimed to be the expected reformer of the latter days, the Awaited One of the world community of religions (The Mahdi and Messiah). The Community he started is an embodiment of the benevolent message of Islam — peace, universal brotherhood, and submission to the Will of God — in its pristine purity.

An online exhibit of Islamic art objects drawn from Museums around the world. It is a project of the Museum With No Frontiers.

This encyclopedia looks at Islam’s role in the modern world, doing so in the context of the religion’s history and development over the last 13 centuries. Containing thematic articles, biographies of key figures, definitions, illustrations, maps and more, this new encyclopedia fills a need in this key area of religious studies.

By the University of Southern California Muslim Students Association.

AfricaBib is a collection of Africana social science titles, presented in one easily accessible location on the internet. It is the culmination of over forty years of Africana research. The site consists of two bibliographic databases covering Africana periodical literature (Africana Periodical Literature) and African Women’s literature (African Women). You will also find a comprehensive bibliography on women travelers and explorers to Africa (Women Travelers, Explorers and Missionaries to Africa). In June 2012 two other bibliographies have been added, on Islam in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa compiled by Paul Schrijver, and on Kenya Coast compiled by Jan Hoorweg.

HOE is a collection of meta-data focusing on historiographical writing of Early Modern Ottoman Europe (1500-1800). It brings together published and unpublished primary sources (chronicles, histories, hagiographies, inscriptions, maps…), as well as secondary material (“Main Section”). It also offers information on specific collections, as well as a wide variety of references to tools and resources useful to those navigating the research questions of Early Modern historiography (“Tool Section”).

Database of indexes to Ottoman Studies, including full-text articles.  Interface is in Turkish.

“The first machine-actionable premodern Persian corpus.  An open-access corpus of more than 60,000 Persian poems (and a few prose texts).”

English-language translations (mostly 19th century) of classic works of Persian literature and historiography. Ordered by author and title; searchable within individual works.

Hayyim, Sulayman. New Persian-English dictionary, complete and modern, designed to give the English meanings of over 50,000 words, terms, idioms, and proverbs in the Persian language, as well as the transliteration of the words in English characters. Together with a sufficient treatment of all the grammatical features of the Persian Language. [Teheran, Librairie-imprimerie Béroukhim] 1934-1936. Copyright © 1934 by Librarie-imprimerie Béroukhim.

The mission of the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia (DDSA) program is to make available the highest quality electronic dictionaries for South Asian languages as free public services via the Internet. DDSA encompasses languages of the current nation-states of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. A panel of language experts involved in the program has identified key dictionaries and selected at least one multilingual dictionary for each of the twenty-six modern literary languages of South Asia. For the more frequently taught languages, panelists also chose at least one monolingual dictionary for digitization.

“Arabic Collections Online (ACO) is a publicly available digital library of public domain Arabic language content. Funded by New York University Abu Dhabi, this mass digitization project aims to expose up to 15,000 volumes from NYU and partner institutions over a period of five years. NYU and the partner institutions are contributing all types of material—literature, business, science, and more—from their Arabic language collections. ACO will provide digital access to printed books drawn from rich Arabic collections of prominent libraries.”

“Shamaa provides specialists and stakeholders free access to the educational publications produced in the Arab countries, by making them available on the Internet. The database includes bibliographic information, abstracts and, when available, the full text of educational studies published in Arabic, English or French.”

The Digital Assets Repository (DAR) is a system developed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Library of Alexandria, to create and maintain the Library's digital collections. Explore our large collection of Arabic digital books, photo albums and more.

The Access to Scientific and Socio-economic Information in Africa (ASKIA) Initiative is under the Public Information & Knowledge Managment Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It defines a framework for bringing together scientific and socio-economic information for the African community, including scientists, researchers, academics, students, economists and, policy-makers, over an interactive online portal acting as a one-stop shop to such knowledge and associated information.