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Middle East and Central Asia

 

The Middle East & Central Asia collection is developed in compliance with the SOAS Collection Development Policy.

In this section, you can learn more about some of the main types of resources you can find in the collection, including print and electronic books, an extensive number of journals, varied multimedia material, our growing repository of SOAS digital collections, and the School's unique holdings of archives and special collections of rare books and manuscripts. 

If you want to learn more about the general features. history, development and importance of the collection, keep reading. 

 

SCOPE

The SOAS collections relating to the Middle East and Central Asia are unique in that while the British Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University have similar coverage, only SOAS Library keeps the bulk of its materials on open access and thus available to browse or borrow.

The Islamic Middle East covers a very wide area both geographically, stretching over three continents, and linguistically, with languages that are spoken from the western tip of north Africa to the farthest reaches of Siberia.

In broad terms the section comprises material on the Arab Middle East (including Egypt and areas formerly under Arab rule like Spain and Sicily) and Arabic; Iran and Iranian languages – ancient and modern (including ancient Persia and its religions); Turkey (including parts of the Balkans formerly under the Ottoman Empire) and Turkish; the Caucasus and Caucasian languages; and Afghanistan and the Republics of former Soviet Central Asia.  The division of Central Asia in SOAS Library between the Middle East and the China collections is based on the Turkic languages and peoples being in the former, and the Mongolian and Tibetan languages and peoples in the latter.  Materials in the collection are in all European languages as well as in the vernacular languages of the area.

LANGUAGES

The linguistic spread is extremely wide.  The one Semitic language, Arabic, comprises the bulk of the collection and includes works on all subjects with special emphasis on Islam, Arabic language and literature and Middle Eastern history.  There is a particular focus on works in Arabic from and about the countries of north Africa.

Iranian languages include more than seventeen ancient and modern languages, principally Modern Persian (Farsi), but also significant collections in and on Old Persian, Balochi, Kurdish and Pashto.

The Turkic languages collection includes Turkish (by far the largest) and also sixteen derived languages – most prominently Uzbek, Uighur (Uygur), Azeri and Kazakh.

You can find more information about useful resources about Middle Eastern languages in our collections and beyond in the page Languages Resources. 

HISTORY

The foundations of the collections on what was then called the Near and Middle East were laid in the old London Institution, which was taken over by the School at its inception. The University of London Library and the libraries of two other colleges, University College and King’s College, transferred to the School their Oriental books in exchange for western-language material from the Institution’s collections, although Hebrew and Syriac were excluded.  Donations were also received from the British Library, the India Office Library and a number of private benefactors.

If you want to learn more about the history of SOAS and its library, the following book may be of interest: 

DECOLONISING THE COLLECTION

In 2019, SOAS library created the Decolonisation Operational Group, which works to decolonise the library and its collections. Since then, the group has initiated a number of initiatives, including public seminars, metadata reviewings, and research. 

You can read more about the group and its projects on its website.

OTHER COLLECTIONS AT SOAS LIBRARY

SOAS Library is one of the only 5 UK National Research Libraries, designated status by HEFCE in 2011. It has circa 2 million of titles in its collections and a developing portfolio of electronic resources and databases. Its collections have a strong focus in the regions and communities of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the resources in this collections can be of interest for your studies and your research.

You can find more information about these regions and other Humanitites and Social Sciences subjects in our other Library Guides. 

The following video will help you know more about the library!