Research Guides: Middle East and North Africa: Books & Manuscripts

Catalog Search

First: Search for books in the catalog

The GW catalog can be used to search for books in Gelman and other Consortium Libraries. You can search for books or journals by the title, keyword, author, subject heading and call number in English or using transliteration (see the Romanization guides below).

Library of Congress Romanization Tables
These are links to the scanned text of the 1997 edition of the ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts, approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association.

Notes on searching in transliteration:

1. The diacritical marks (lines over letters, dots under letters, etc.) shown in the romanization tables are not necessary for searching in our catalogs.

2. If your search term starts with "al", do not include it when searching. For example, search for "Andalus," not "al-Andalus." If "al" appears later in the title, however, it should be included.

GW Libraries Search

Search for Books

WorldCat

Next: Search WorldCat & Request through ILL

WorldCat (First Search)
Can't find a book, film or journal in Gelman or Consortium Libraries? Use WorldCat. It is the world's largest online union catalog and provides access to library holdings from across the United States and around the world.
If you are outside of the Gelman Library, you are required to log on to the search system.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a free service available to current GW students, faculty members and staff that allows you to obtain material not owned by any of the GW libraries or Washington Research Libraries Consortium (WRLC) Libraries. Books will be mailed, articles and chapters sent electronically.

E-books

Al-Meshkat Library
This platform focuses on Islamic studies and cultural values in the Message of Prophet Muhammad.
Collections électroniques de l’Institut français du Proche-Orien
IFPO ensure the dissemination and promotion of research carried out within the scientific territories invested by the Institute in the societies of the Near East (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Iraq) in all the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences from Antiquity to the present day.
The Description de l’Egypte
Desegy was the outcome of the collaboration of more than 150 scholars and scientists who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798, and some 2000 talented artists and technicians.
Digi20
The platform enables you to search the full text of around 4,100 digitized monographs from the second half of the 20th century, mainly from the humanities and social sciences.
The Digital Assets Repository (DAR)
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.
e-kitap
Ottoman Turkish e-books
ETANA (Electronic Texts and Ancient Near Eastern Archives)
ETANA has digitized, and continues to digitize, texts selected as valuable for teaching and research relating to ancient Near Eastern studies.
Goussen Library Collection
GLC is a specialist library for oriental church history. It contains prints in Western classical and modern languages, but predominantly prints in oriental languages such as Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Arabic, Armenian and Georgian languages from the 16th to the 20th century (the focus is on the 18th and the 19th century).
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
IRCICA Farabi Digital LibraryDigi
Digital collections comprising materials in Ottoman periodicals, Ottoman yearbooks, international relations, maps, historical photographs, Turkish literature, calligraphy, and other topics.
MDZ Münchener Digitalisierungs Zentrum
MDZ offers 2,752,507 Digitized Manuscripts, Prints, Music, Maps, Photographs, Newspapers and Magazines.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks.
Springer Electronic Books
Providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings.
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library provides unrestricted public access, free of charge, to manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, prints and photographs in 7 languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish)

Suggested for Young Adults

A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird; Bill Neal (Illustrator); Sonia Nimr (As told to)
Publication Date: 2006-10-01

Important Publications

Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips
Publication Date: 2024-03-12
The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publication Date: 2022-02-15
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
Publication Date: 2006-11-02
Fraternal Enemies by Clive Jones; Yoel Guzansky
Publication Date: 2020-04-01
The Invention of the Land of Israel by Shlomo Sand; Geremy Forman (Translator)
Publication Date: 2012-11-20
Islamic Fascism by Hamed Abdel-Samad
Publication Date: 2016-01-05
The Middle East, Oil, and the U. S. National Security Policy by Donald M. Snow
Publication Date: 2016-03-17
On Palestine by Noam Chomsky; Ilan Pappe; Frank Barat (Editor)
Publication Date: 2015-04-07

Manuscripts

Aga Khan Library Digital Collections
Digitized rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and papers (in progress).
Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation
The Digital Library is an open access platform that provides cross-search and specialized research tools on Islamic written heritage.
Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa
This rare collection of manuscripts, mostly handwritten in Arabic and Ajami scripts, dates back to the 19th and 20th centuries and come from mainly northern Nigeria (Kano in particular) but also includes items from Ghana, Senegal and Mali.
Cairo Genizah Collection (Cambridge University Library)
Manuscripts from across the Taylor-Schechter, CUL Or. and Jacques Mosseri Collections available online, including a substantial number of documents (letters and legal deeds) and liturgical texts
DigiVatLib
DigiVatLib is a digital library service. It provides free access to the Vatican Library’s digitized collections of manuscripts and incunabula. You can search this database for Arabic and related collections.
DLIR Digital Archive
Selected materials from Guatemala, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Yemen, and Mongolia, and numerous other countries where American Overseas Research Centers (AORCs) are located made easily and freely available over the Internet
Exploring Egypt in the 19th Century
Complete facsimiles of publications from the early-19th-century expeditions to Egypt by Champollion and Rosellini.
Fihrist -- Islamic Manuscript Catalogue Online
Basic manuscript descriptions from major manuscript collections in the UK, Bodleian included.
Fihrist: Oxford anCambridge Islamic Manuscripts Catalogue Online
Contains over 3,000 digitized manuscripts from the Oxford and Cambridge collection of manuscripts.
Gallica Bnf
Gallica is one of the major digital libraries that provides free access to any type of document: printed documents (books, press and magazines) in image and text mode, manuscripts, sound and iconographic documents, maps and plans.
Islamic Manuscripts from Mali
The manuscripts, written in various Arabic scripts, presented online are displayed in their entirety and are an exemplary grouping that showcase the wide variety of subjects covered by the written traditions of Timbuktu, Mali, and West Africa.
Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine
This platform is about Islamic medicine and science during the Middle Ages and the important role it played in the history of Europe. It is designed for students and everyone interested in the history of Islamic and European culture.
Manuscripts of the Islamic World
This platform offers a curated selection of extraordinary manuscripts hosted or held by Princeton University Library. The manuscripts are predominantly in Arabic, but there are also many in Persian and Ottoman Turkish.
Middle East Centre (MECA) Useful Links
Links to resources for finding contact information for archival repositories, catalogue networks, resources for finding archives and digitized online resources and other heritage websites.
Online Archive of California (OAC)
The Online Archive of California (OAC) is a research gateway to unique and historical materials at archives, libraries, and museums throughout California.
Poetry and Prayer: Islamic Manuscripts from the Walters Art Museum
An online exhibit of Islamic manuscripts – both devotional and non-religious – dating from the 9th through the 19th century from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Qatar Digital Library
This growing archive covers modern history and culture of the Gulf and wider region, available online for the first time.
Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu
Arabic nineteenth-century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies. From the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali.
Yazma Kitaplar
Website of the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry's digitized manuscript collection.

MENA History and US Relations

The Arab of the Future 3 by Riad Sattouf
Publication Date: 2018-08-07

Series of volumes recount memoir of growing up in France, Libya and Syria in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
Babylon Burning by Toufic El Rassi
Publication Date: 2019-05-15

A graphic history of the making of the modern Middle East.
Best of Enemies by Jean-Pierre Filiu; David B. (Illustrator)
The story in three book series of the blockades, broadsides, and betrayals of this foreign affair from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Eisenhower era, and from gold to oil, has continued to define our modern world.

Middle East and North Africa: Books & Manuscripts

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