Aga Khan Museum Manuscript's Digital Library
The Aga Khan Museum, which is under construction in Toronto, Canada, includes an important manuscript collection (over 70 manuscripts) and several hundred folios with miniature paintings. The manuscripts (Qur'an, religious commentary, books of science, philosophy , and literature (including some famous Shahnameh) have been scanned (digitized) and are avalaible on this website.
Arabic Manuscripts Digital Library of Jerusalem
A collaborative project between the main libraries of East Jerusalem. The First Virtual Library of Collections of Arabic Manuscripts in Jerusalem. Developed within the framework of project Manumed, financed by the European Union and the region Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur, "The Arabic Manuscripts Digital Library of Jerusalem" aims to promote the written heritage of East Jerusalem and to make this heritage accessible to all with the sole caveat of an internet connection. It relies on the latest technology to provide access which is simple, multimedia and multilingual.
AMBULO - Manoscritti arabi della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna Online - Progetto della Cattedra di studi islamici King 'Abdulaziz - Università di Bologna I manoscritti arabi digitalizzati della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna sono 450 e appartengono alla collezione di libri di Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730). Si tratta di codici in arabo, con qualche raro caso di testi in turco, databili dal XIII secolo alla seconda metà del XVII (d.C.). I soggetti dei manoscritti sono: astronomia, religione, diritto, grammatica, lessicografia, metrica, geografia, medicina, dizionari biografici, corani. Numerosi manoscritti sono miscellanei. Essi sono stati raccolti durante i viaggi di Marsili in Turchia, dal 1679 al 1692, e durante l'assedio di Buda nel 1684.
Biblioteca Virtual de Patrimonio Bibliográfico Proyecto cooperativo del Ministerio de Cultura y las Comunidades Autónomasde España cuyo objetivo es la difusión mediante facsímiles digitales de colecciones de manuscritos y libros impresos que forman parte del Patrimonio Histórico Español.
Esta iniciativa permitirá consultar sin restricciones fondos que, por sus características, resultan difícilmente accesibles. Está formada por las reproducciones facsímiles digitales de colecciones que componen el Patrimonio Bibliográfico Español. La participación se ha iniciado mediante la firma de convenios con otras instituciones que conservan fondos patrimoniales
Bibliothèque Numérique Mondiale de l'Unesco Su objetivo es favorecer el acceso a los tesoros bibliográficos de las grandes bibliotecas internacionales para favorecer el multilingüismo.
Briquet Online
Website that facilitates access to the manual Les filigranes :dictionnaire historique des marques du papier by C. M. Briquet.
Cambridge Digital Library
Cambridge University Library's collection of Islamic manuscripts dates from the origins of Arabic scholarship in Cambridge in the 1630s when the University founded a Professorship in Arabic and William Bedwell donated a Qur'an to the Library. Since that time the collection has grown in size and diversity to over 5,000 works, including the collections of Thomas Erpenius, J.L.Burckhardt, E.H.Palmer and E.G. Browne. These manuscripts shed light on many aspects of the Islamic world, its beliefs and learning..."
Caro Minasian Collection of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts. UCLA Library Special Collections: Manuscript Division
Joint project between the UCLA Research Library (Department of Special Collections) and the Digital Library Program to provide online access to collections of manuscripts related to the Near East (Minasian Collection), which includes numerous Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Armenian documents, dating from the 14th to the 17th centuries.
Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies (COMSt)
Cooperation programme planned for 2009-2014, designed to promote intercultural academic dialogue and active exchange in the field of Oriental texts, with special emphasis on the Mediterranean region and Northern Africa.
Die Damaszener Familienbibliothek Refaiya
Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, 2008-2012. The website provides access to digitized manuscripts as well as catalogs and research.
Digital Scriptorium
More than 1200 links with digitalized Hebrew manuscripts from different institutions around the world. Most are in color but some are of poor quality and in black and white.
e-corpus
Collective and patrimonial numerical library for cataloging and circulating documents: manuscripts, archives, books, diaries, laminas, sound records, videos. Administered by the Book Conservation Center (Arles - France), this hybrid platform evaluates the cultural diversity in the world and, especially, in the Euro-Mediterranean region. It offers thematic corpi and a vast amount of numerical data proceeding from numerous institutions of several countries. It is based on the most advanced technology for a simple, multimedia and multilingual access. This virtual library has been created within the framework of MANUMED Project.
EUROPEANA
It provides access to digital resources and collections from European museums, libraries, archives and audiovisual archives. It promotes meetings and opportunities in a multilingual space, in which users can acquire, share and become inspired by the rich diversity of the European cultural and scientific heritage.
European Digital Library of Written Cultural Heritage
Virtual research environment providing access to all the digital documents existing in the field of historical collections (manuscripts, incunabula, ancient books, maps, legal documents and others).
These historical resources, which would otherwise be dispersed among different digital libraries worldwide, are now available under a single interface. The service provides the same access to 5 million digital images.
Fihrist: Islamic Manuscript Catalogue Online
British union catalogue for manuscripts in Arabic script. The project originated with the Oxford and Cambridge Islamic Manuscript Catalogue Online.
Harvard's Islamic Heritage Project (IHP)
Digital collection that includes around 280 manuscripts, more than 50 maps and more than 275 printed texts from the library and museum collections of Harvard University, between the 10th to the 20th centuries. These texts cover a wide geographic area including works from Saudi Arabia, Northern Africa, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Central and Southern Asia. They are written in Arabic, Persian, Turkish Ottoman, Urdu etc.
Islamic Manuscripts
Page coordinated by Jan Just Witkam, teacher of Islamic Paleography and Codicology at Leiden University.
Islamic Manuscript Basics
This site holds basic information and resources relating to the study of Islamic manuscripts. If you are new to thinking about the material aspects of Islamic manuscripts or are simply curious and want to know more, then this site is for you!
Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan
Project to catalogue and digitise 1,250 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
Islamic Manuscripts in the Leipzig University Library
Project to catalogue and digitalize 55 Islamic manuscripts sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), with the aim of creating a database and digital access to Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts recently acquired by the University of Leipzig.
Jewish Theological Seminary de New York: hebrewmanuscripts.org
1,000 Hebrew documents from the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, with the complete text in PDF, many of these are manuscripts and most are printed. However, they have been digitised in black and white and low resolution.
Lessons in codicology and palaeographybased on manuscripts from the Middle East, Islamic Africa and beyond
This is a collection of lessons in codicology – the study of handwritten documents or codices - and palaeography from the Muslim world. The lessons will guide you through the ways books were made and used there before the printing press, by investigating the traces left by producers, owners and readers of manuscripts. Using your mouse, you will come close to people in the manuscript age as they produced, transmitted, cherished and “consumed” the written texts.
The lessons are centered around fully digitalised manuscripts from the oriental collection of Leiden University Libraries. They include samples in Arabic, Persian and Coptic, from cultures ranging from the Maghrib to Mughal India. The lessons can be read in any order. All include suggestions for further reading and questions (with answers) or assignments.
Manuscripts of the Muslim World
Manuscripts of the Muslim World will include digital editions of more than 500 manuscripts and 827 paintings from the Islamicate world broadly construed. Together these holdings represent in great breadth the flourishing intellectual and cultural heritage of Muslim lands from 1000 to 1900, covering mathematics, astrology, history, law, literature, as well as the Qur'an and Hadith. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts in Arabic and Persian, along with examples of Coptic, Samaritan, Syriac, Turkish, and Berber. The primary partners are Columbia University, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania with signifiant contributions from Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College. This collection is funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources.
MELCOM. (Middle East Library Committee)
Forum for British experts working in libraries specialized in the Near East to debate and exchange information and ideas.
Middle East Virtual Library (MENALIB)
Informative gateway on Islamic civilization that provides online information, access to databases, news, digital and multimedia resources, prints etc. making this a genuine virtual library. Although it was designed by the State- and University Library Saxony- Anhalt of Halle (Germany), it is the result of the combined effort of numerous institutions and individuals to provide up-to-date information in its area of specialisation.
Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)
This project began as a consequence of a series of conversations in 2010 between Charles Jones and Peter Magierski at NYU about the need for a tool to assemble and distribute information on open access material relating to the Middle East.
NYPL Digital Gallery: Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts
More than 100 illustrations from some of the most representative Hebrew manuscripts from the New York Public Library, such as Padua Ashkenazi Mahzor, the Haggadah of Hamburg or the Xanten Bible.
Oriental Manuscript Resource (OMAR)
Database set up by the German universities of Freiburg and Tübingen. It contains bibliographic images and information from around 2,500 Arabic manuscripts with complete text proceeding from Mauritania.
Penn/Cambridge Genizah Fragment Project
Website offering access to the texts of Genizah of Cairo dated from the 9th to the 15th centuries, written in Hebrew, Aramaic or Judeo-arabic.
Piccard online
Website of the State Archives of Stuttgart facilitating use of the Guide to Gerhardt Piccard's watermarks' repertory.
Princeton University: Geniza Project
Database of transcriptions of texts by S. D. Goitein, and printed editions of interest to further the study of Genizah texts.
Project AMEEL. Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library. Yale University Library
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.
Qalamos. Connecting manuscript tradition
Qalamos provides direct access to metadata and digitised copies of Oriental manuscript collections in Germany. It comprises approximately 135,000 manuscript datasets from Asian and African script traditions containing descriptions of 120,000 physical objects written in more than 160 languages and 80 scripts. The mission of Qalamos is to provide the metadata and digitised copies of Oriental holdings of all German memory institutions. Moreover, it aims to enhance international cooperation: Qalamos currently already presents collections from Indonesia, Yemen, Mauritania and Austria.
Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library
The Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library is a publication of St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, Egypt, in collaboration with the UCLA Library and Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL). It hosts online the results of the Sinai Library Digitization Project, a ten-year collaborative effort to digitize the unparalleled manuscript library of St. Catherine’s Monastery.
St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai preserves one of the world’s oldest continually operating libraries. It holds some 4,559 manuscript codices, with works in 13 languages written from the 4th to the 19th century. These include the New Finds, a cache of approximately 1,100 fragmentary manuscripts discovered in 1975 when monks cleared debris from an earthquake-damaged room in the north wall of the Monastery.
SLUB Dresden: Oriental Manuscripts
The SLUB Dresden's manuscript collection contains over 448 Islamic manuscripts (196 Ottoman, 184 Arabic, 68 Persian). Following clashes with the Ottomans in the Balkan region, these manuscripts arrived in Europe and were acquired in the 18th and 19th centuries from collections of nobility and scholarly estates. In the 19th century, a large number of Tibetan (438) and Mongolian (58) manuscripts were purchased. Other Oriental manuscripts, i.e. Chinese (18), Japanese (3), Indonesian (9), Sanskrit (1), Hebraic (10) and Ethiopian (4), were bestowed upon the library by private persons.
The Islamic Manuscripts Association (TIMA)
Non-profit making organisation for the protection of collections of Islamic manuscripts and collaboration with individuals working on them.
The National Library of Israel: digitized manuscripts
The Israel National Library runs a very complete gateway of Hebrew manuscripts. It has catalogued most of the Hebrew manuscripts existing today in their library and in the most important libraries worldwide.
The Royal Library (Denmark): Manuscripts in the Judaica Collection
The National Library of Copenhagen stores more than 350 manuscripts written in Hebrew, as well as others written in Jewish, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian etc. that form part of the Judaic collection. This website offers access to some of these manuscripts and also to David Simonsen's collection of more than 170 texts.
University of Melbourne - Open Access Manuscripts Collection - Middle Eastern Manuscripts
93 manuscripts are available online. The core of the Middle Eastern Studies Collection was given to the University of Melbourne Library in 1972 by the then Department of Middle Eastern Studies. The collection consisted chiefly of microfilms, but included more than 100 original manuscripts housed from that time onwards in the Special Collections. Over time this has grown to 183 manuscripts, many of which are beautiful works of art with interesting calligraphy and decoration. The manuscripts are written mostly in Persian and Arabic, with a few in Urdu, Syriac Turkish and other languages. Most manuscripts in the collection were written in the nineteenth century, but some may date back to the fifteenth century. There are a number of Qurans, but the collection is not exclusively Islamic: it also includes a Maronite Christian prayerbook in Arabic and a Syriac Christian commentary on the Gospels. There are also grammars, dictionaries and a few fictional and poetic works.
University of Utah's J. Willard Marriot Library: Middle East Collections
The Arabic Papyrus, Parchment & Paper Collection is the largest of its kind in the United States, containing 770 Arabic papyrus documents, 1300 Arabic paper documents, and several pieces on parchment. The collection was acquired by Prof. Aziz Suriyal Atiya, founder of the Middle East Center and the Middle East Library. A large number of pieces date to the period between 700 and 850 CE. The collection includes a significant number of documents from the pre-Ottoman period and thus offers unique source material on the political, economic, religious and intellectual life of Egypt during the first two centuries of Islamic rule and the period up to Ottoman domination.
Virtual Manuscript Room
oint project in Spain between the Ministry of Culture and the Autonomous Communities, whose purpose is to make available to a wider public digital facsimile collections of manuscripts and printed books belonging to Spanish written heritage.
This initiative will enable people to make unrestricted consultations which, owing to their nature, are usually difficult to access. It is composed of digital facsimile collections that constitute the Spanish Bibliographic Heritage. This collaboration was started by the two parties by signing agreements with other institutions that house patrimonial collections.
Wellcome Arabic Manuscripts
The Wellcome Library, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and King's College London, have formed a partnership to create a free searchable online catalogue of 500 Islamic manuscripts in the Wellcome Library.
Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative
The private manuscript libraries of Yemen, estimated at 50,000 codices, constitutes the largest and most important set of unexamined Arabic manuscripts in the world today. The Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative presents, for the first time, access to manuscripts from three private libraries in Sanaa, Yemen, and virtually conjoins them to additional Yemeni manuscripts held by the Princeton University Library and Staatsbibliothek, Berlin.