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UCLA Library stewards the second largest collection of Islamicate and Arabic-script manuscripts in North America. Dating from as early as 1100 to as recently as the 1930s, the manuscripts represent a wide variety of languages and subjects, originating from North Africa, Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia and the Middle East. The texts contain records of religious, cultural, literary and scientific documentation in areas under Muslim rule.
The Los Angeles area is home to diverse diasporic communities –
including one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in the United
States. In the third installment of L.A. Stories(opens in a new tab), UCLA Library experts
and UCLA scholars discuss the significance of the Library’s ongoing
Islamicate Manuscripts Initiative (opens in a new tab)(IMI), a project to describe and
catalog these rare materials to make them more accessible to local
communities and scholars worldwide.
Describing their experiences working with the initiative, Luke Yarbrough(opens in a new tab), UCLA associate professor of Near Eastern languages & cultures, and Sohaib Baig(opens in a new tab), Middle East, South Asian and Islamic Studies librarian at UCLA Library, touch on the importance of the manuscripts to understanding the rich history and culture of communities.
Abigail Connick(opens in a new tab), cataloging and metadata librarian at UCLA Library, describes the process of providing descriptions for the manuscripts and making them accessible to researchers. In order to ensure the accuracy of the descriptions, she draws on the language expertise and subject expertise of UCLA graduate students like Azeem Malik, UCLA Islamic Studies Ph.D. candidate, and Deniz Çitak(opens in a new tab), History Ph.D. candidate, who closely examine the unique material in order to describe them and gain new insights.
M. Fareed Farukhi(opens in a new tab), the founder of Universal Heritage, discusses the significance of the initiative’s impact on local Muslim communities and how this project preserves important cultural knowledge.
Islamicate Manuscript Collections
Consisting chiefly of texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish (in addition to Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, and other languages), the Islamicate Manuscript Collections are stewarded by UCLA Library Special Collections.
Portions of these collections are digitized: the Minasian Collection of Near Eastern Manuscripts, ca. 1100-1899(opens in a new tab), Exhibit Collection of Near Eastern Manuscripts, 1492-1848(opens in a new tab) and Bound Manuscripts Collection(opens in a new tab).
Visit the Library's Middle Eastern Studies Manuscripts Research Guide(opens in a new tab) to view a comprehensive list of collections and learn how to request materials.
The L.A. Stories series elevates UCLA Library’s regional collections, including diverse communities, cultures and historical landmarks. We invite researchers and others to access these and other collections.
