Islamic Manuscripts Collection (University of Michigan)
The Islamic Manuscripts Collection covers subjects including the Qur’an and its sciences, hadith, theology, jurisprudence (fiqh), Sufism, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, rhetoric, grammar, poetry, history, geography, and medicine. It consists of more than 1,100 volumes, plus a small number of fragments, dating from the 8th to the early 20th century and containing roughly 1,800 texts primarily in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish. The collection ranks among the largest and most significant such collections in North America. The collection includes a significant number of pieces by well-known Ottoman masters of calligraphy. Manuscript cultures of areas formerly under the Ottoman Empire are particularly well-represented in text, artistry, reading, and collecting more generally. Most of the manuscripts were produced and circulated in Islamicate areas of the Middle East and North Africa. The HathiTrust Digital Library has almost all of the manuscripts available for viewing and download.