Middle East

Our Middle East collections comprise manuscripts, printed books, newspapers and journals from countries in today's Middle East as well as from Iran and Central Asia from the 5th century AD to the present day.

Collection guides

Arabic collections
Over 100,000 volumes of printed books, periodicals and newspapers; more than 15,000 manuscript works in about 14,000 volumes; and a range of other materials
Persian collections
Over 40,000 volumes of printed books, periodicals and newspapers, more than 11,000 manuscripts, and a range of other materials.
Hebrew collections
Manuscripts copied over 1,000 years ago to the most recent monographs and serials
Christian Middle East collections
Around 4,000 manuscripts and some 14,700 printed books and periodicals
Qur'ans
Copies of the Qur’an from many different geographical regions and periods
Turkish and Turkic collections
Over 25,000 volumes of printed books, periodicals and newspapers, more than 4,000 manuscript texts, and other materials

View all related guides

Help

Asian & African Studies Reading Room

Find information on the shelves
Access online databases and electronic books and journals
Order collection items to the Reading Room via our catalogues

If you need help, just ask our Information Specialists at the Reference Enquiry desk or contact the Asian & African Studies Reference Team.

We offer free Discovery and 1-2-1 Sessions to help you make the best use of the Library's collections.

You’ll need a Reader Pass

Mon: 10.00 – 17.00
Tue – Sat: 09.30 – 17.00
Sun & English Public Holidays: closed

Opening hours for all Reading Rooms

Blog posts

‘An inexperienced and incompetent chauffeur’: the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

At dawn on 25th August 1941, the people of Iran awoke to a full-scale invasion of their country by the combined forces of Britain and the Soviet Union. Within three weeks the Iranian military had been overwhelmed, Tehran had fallen...

Seeking Wartime Employment: Bertram Thomas and Frank Smythe

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

On 27 August 1939, the explorer Bertram Thomas sent a telegram to John Charles Walton of the India Office, offering his services to the Government of India in the event of war, in the Persian Gulf ‘or wherever my Arab...

Thirty-leaved Qur’ans from India

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Manuscripts of the Qur’an exist in many different sizes and forms: in single volumes and also in multi-volume sets ranging from two to seven, ten, thirty or sixty volumes. However it was not until recently, while working on Qur’ans in...

Destitute Indian Women in 1930s Damascus

Friday, June 8, 2018

In February 1935, the British Consul in Damascus, Gilbert Mackereth, wrote to his superiors at the Foreign Office in London with a dilemma. Since 1926, the Consulate had been responsible for making cash payments to a number of destitute British...