The Islamic Manuscript Gallery brings together Islamic manuscripts and related manuscript catalogues and dictionaries.  The Gallery was originally part of the Yale/SOAS Islamic Manuscripts Gallery (YSlMG).  The digital collection found here, however, is only that originating from SOAS, University of London.  The full collection is online at Yale University.

Islamic culture is spread across an enormous geographical area, from Morocco to the easternmost islands of the Malay Archipelago. European conquests of this area led to the broader distribution of many of the most important artifacts of Islamic culture and, in particular, manuscripts. This makes the task of the scholar working on Islamic texts extraordinarily difficult. Without clear records, provenance is often difficult to assertain. Not only are Islamic manuscripts broadly distributed, many remain hidden, uncatalogued. Much excellent work has been done by Western scholars working on Islamic manuscripts, but the fruits of their labours, too, are hidden away in manuscript catalogues which are difficult to access.

The physical collection at SOAS, approximately 400 Arabic manuscripts and 400 Persian manuscripts, was catalogued before World War II by A. J. Arberry.  Proof of the catalogue were shipped to Beirut in 1939. Unfortunately, they did not survive the war. As a result, the School has only Arberry's notes and some galley proofs of the catalogue. In 1980, Adam Gacek worked up the entries for the Arabic manuscripts with latter additions into a catalogue which was published in a limited edition in 1981, and again in 1985 with corrections. There is no complete catalogue of the Persian manuscripts.

 

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank first and foremost JISC, who funded the project under the the Transatlantic Digitisation Collaboration. In particular, we thank our programme officer, Alastair Dunning. In addition to the Project team members, we would like to acknowledge Ann Okerson and Elizabeth Beaudin, our colleagues at our partner institution Yale University, who came to us with the technical specifications of the project already worked out, and, who mentored the SOAS team throughout the length of the project.

Among the staff at SOAS whom we thank are David Perrow, John Robinson, Professor Graham Furniss, Alexander Morton, and Dr Konrad Hirschler and Professor Hugh Kennedy. We also acknowledge the help of our colleagues Malcolm Raggett, Julie Makinson, Stuart Blackburn, and colleagues in the Archives and Special Collections, in particular Lance Martin. Finally we would like to thank University of London Computer Centre staff, Richard Davis and Rory McNichol.