Middle Eastern Studies

Featured Collections

Cover of Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials Gifted to the Library of Congress bound in red Morocco with gilt edges. Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials Gifted to the ...
Illuminated Armenian manuscript page from Patmutʻiwn varutsʻ Eranelwoyn Yōhannu Awetaranchʻin. Armenian Rarities Collections
Cuneiform clay tablet 4 x 5 1/2 cm recording the receipt of livestock written in Sumerian script. Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to ...
Photo of Habib Bourguiba, left depicted with Muḥammad ʻAlī Tahir from the Eltaher Collection Eltaher Collection
Page from manuscript in the Monastery of Vatopedi from the monasteries of Mt. Athos showing a map by Ptolemy from the 13th century with place names inside square drawn boxes. Manuscripts from the Monasteries of Mt. Athos
Illuminated Greek manuscript Evangelion from Saint Catherine (Monastery: Mount Sinai) with an angel seated before a bible on a stand. Manuscripts in St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai
Title page of the autobiography of Omar ben Saeed includes text “The life of Omar ben Saeed, called Morro, a Fullah Slave in Fayetteville, N.C. Owned by Governor Owen.” Omar ibn Said Collection
Illuminated page in Ghazalīyāt-i shaykh Saʻdī selection of poems from classical Persian Poets depicting a man with his arms around a woman sitting on a mat wearing Persian robes. Persian Language Rare Materials
Ottoman calligraphic panels (qit'a), framed calligraphic inscription called a Levha in Ottoman Turkish. Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy

This section of the guide links to unique digitized primary and secondary collection materials from the Library of Congress Middle Eastern and Central Asian collections. In addition, online exhibitions provide curated presentations of collection materials from the Library of Congress and other institutions.

The Near East Section retains custody of materials in over 40 languages of the area known as the Near East, including the countries and peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The main linguistic groupings- Arabic, Armenian, Central Asian, Georgian, Persian, and Turkish and Turkic Armenian, Georgian–form the basis of a particularly potent and vital research center on all things Middle Eastern. Its specialists are available for briefings, for rapid and long-term reference and research assistance, and for detailed bibliographic and subject analyses.

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    Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials Gifted to the Library of Congress In 1884 Sultan Abdul-Hamid II gifted the Library of Congress with a collection of Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Arabic works that he had richly embossed with this inscription in English, French and Ottoman: "Gift made by H.I. M. the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II to the national library of the United States of America through the Honorable A.S. Hewitt Member of the House of Representatives A.H. 1302-1884…

    Collection Items: View 325 Items

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    Armenian Rarities Collection The lands of the Armenians were for millennia located in Eastern Anatolia, on the Armenian Highlands, and into the Caucasus Mountain range. First mentioned almost contemporaneously by a Greek and Persian source in the 6th century BC, modern DNA studies have shown that the people themselves had already been in place for many millennia. Those people the world know as Armenians call themselves Hay…

    Collection Items: View 59 Items

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    Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar III Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar III presents clay tablets, cones, and brick fragments inscribed using the ancient writing system known as cuneiform from the Library of Congress’ collections. The Sumerians invented this writing system, which involves the use of a wedge-shaped reed stylus to make impressions in clay. Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to…
    • Contributor: Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division - Kirkor Minassian Collection (Library of Congress)

    Collection Items: View 44 Items

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    Eltaher Collection The Eltaher Collection consists of more than 2,000 items in various formats, including books, pamphlets, photographs, personal correspondence, and newspaper clippings among other documents. The majority of the collection is in Arabic, with some in English. The collection documents the history of the Arab world from 1912 to 1974, with a focus on the life of a well-known Palestinian Arab journalist and newspaper editor,…

    Collection Items: View 107 Items

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    Manuscripts from the Monasteries of Mt. Athos The twenty monasteries which comprise the historic and legendary yet largely inaccessible monastic complex on Mt. Athos in Greece house a rich collection of over 11,000 manuscripts. In 1952 and 1953, the Library of Congress and the International Greek New Testament Project filmed the largest group of manuscripts in the history of Athos. This collection included 209 Greek and Georgian manuscripts of the Bible…
    • Contributor: Library of Congress
    • Date: 1952

    Collection Items: View 258 Items

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    Manuscripts in St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai The renowned Eastern Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai was constructed by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I, in the late sixth century AD over the relics of the martyred saint and the place of the biblical burning bush as identified by St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor, Constantine. It is home to reputedly the oldest continuously run library in existence…
    • Contributor: Clark, Kenneth Willis - Saint Catherine (Monastery : Mount Sinai)
    • Date: 1950

    Collection Items: View 1,691 Items

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    Omar Ibn Said Collection The Omar Ibn Said Collection consists of 42 digitized documents in both English and Arabic, including an 1831 manuscript in Arabic on "The Life of Omar Ibn Said," a West African slave in America, which is the centerpiece of this unique collection of texts. Some of the manuscripts in this collection include texts in Arabic by another West African slave in Panama, and others…
    • Contributor: American Ethnological Society - Omar Ibn Said Collection (Library of Congress) - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions - Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collections Division - Kebe, Lamine - Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division - Said, Omar Ibn - Rothman, Adam - Dukur, Muḥammad - Bird, Isaac ... American Ethnological Society - Omar Ibn Said Collection (Library of Congress) - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions - Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collections Division - Kebe, Lamine - Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division - Said, Omar Ibn - Rothman, Adam - Dukur, Muḥammad - Bird, Isaac - Dwight, Theodore - Beard, Derrick Joshua - American Bible Society - Cotheal, Alexander Isaac - See, Sheikh Sana - Thomson, William Hanna
    • Date: 1741

    Collection Items: View 46 Items

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    Persian Language Rare Materials The Library of Congress is home to a noteworthy collection of rare Persian language manuscripts, lithographic books and early imprints, as well as printed books, housed in the African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Most of these Persian manuscripts and lithographic books were procured for the Library in the 1930s by Kirkor Minassian (1874-1944), a renowned…

    Collection Items: View 492 Items

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    Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy “Whoever writes the bismillah in a beautiful writing enters Paradise without judgment.” (1-84-154.56) Scholars and practitioners of Islamic calligraphy have long considered the written word the quintessential medium for expressing religious sentiment and personal piety. Indeed, as noted in the calligraphic fragment above (1-84-154.56), a beautiful handwriting (husn al-khatt) that includes the bismillah (“In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful”) is believed…

    Collection Items: View 273 Items