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  • This bibliography lists works relating to or including information on the Middle Eastern manuscript and printed book collections in Cambridge University Library, including the collections in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Malay.
  • Also included is information on the Cambridge scholarly tradition and individual Cambridge Middle Eastern scholars.
  • A list of printed catalogues, which frequently contain descriptive material, can be found here.
     
  • A bibliography of the Cairo Genizah Collection can be found here.

Reference works

Ali, Amjad 
Oriental Manuscripts worldwide.
New Delhi; Ess Ess Publications, 2005

Bloomfield, B.C. (ed.)
A directory of rare book and special collections in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
London: Library Association Publishing, 1997.

Burnett, David
Arabic resources: acquisition and management in British libraries.
London : Mansell, 1986.

Grimwood-Jones, Diana et al.
Arab-Islamic bibliography : the Middle East Library Committee guide.
Hassocks : Harvester, 1977.

Matthews, Noel
A guide to manuscripts and documents in the British Isles relating to the Middle East and North Africa
Oxford : Oxford University Press [for the School of Oriental and African Studies], c1980.

Netton, Ian Richard 
Middle East sources: a MELCOM guide to Middle Eastern and Islamic books and materials in United Kingdom and Irish libraries.
Richmond : Curzon, 1998.

Roman, Stephen 
The development of Islamic library collections in Western Europe and North America. 
London, Mansell, 1990.

Pearson, James D. 
Oriental and Asian bibliography: an introduction with some reference to Africa.
London, Crosby Lockwood, 1966.

Pearson, James D.
Oriental manuscript collections in the libraries of Great Britain and Ireland
London : Royal Asiatic Society, 1954.

Pearson, James D. 
Oriental manuscripts in Europe and North America; a survey.
Zug: Inter Documentation Company, 1971.

Richler, Binyamin
Guide to Hebrew manuscript collections.
Jerusalem : Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994.

Roper, Geoffrey (ed.)
World survey of Islamic manuscripts. Vol. 3 
London : Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1992-1994.

 

Monograph works

Ansorge, Catherine
Faith & fable ; Islamic manuscripts from Cambridge University Library
Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 2011.

Auchterlonie, Paul
Collections in British libraries on Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.
Durham : Centre for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, University of Durham, c1981.

Arberry, A.J.
British contributions to Persian studies.
London; New York: Longmans, Green, 1942.

Arberry, A.J. 
British orientalists. 
London, Collins, 1943.

Arberry, A.J.
The Cambridge School of Arabic: an inaugural lecture delivered on 30 October 1947. 
Cambridge, 1948.

Arberry, A.J. 
Oriental essays: portraits of seven scholars. 
London, Allen & Unwin, 1960.

Badger, George Percy (ed.)
History of the Imāms and sayyids of ‘Omān by Salīlibn-Razīk, from A.D. 661-1856, by Ḥamīd ibn Muhammad Ibn Ruzayq.  
London; Hakluyt Society, 1871

Bensly, R.L., Mrs 
Our journey to Sinai: a visit to the convent of St. Catarina.
London : Religious Tract Society, 1896.

Bosworth, C.E. 
A century of British orientalists, 1902-2001. 
London, Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2001.

Brend, Barbara and Melville, C. P. (eds)
Epic of the Persian kings: the art of Ferdowsi’s Shahmameh. 
London, Tauris, 2010.

Browne, Edward Granville
Materials for the study of the Bábí religion. 
Cambridge : The University press, 1918.

Browne, Edward Granville.
A year amongst the Persians : Impressions as to the life, character, & thought of the people of Persia, received during twelve months' residence in that country in the years 1887-1888. 
London : A. and C. Black, 1893.

Fox, Peter and Jenkins, Brian (eds)
A journey round the world mind.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 2010.

Fox, Peter, (ed)
Cambridge University Library: the great collections.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Al Ghunaim, Abdullah Yousef (Al-Ghunaym, ‘Abd allāh Yūsuf) 
al-Makhtūtāt al-jughrāfīya al-‘arabīya fī al-maktabah al-barītānīyya wa-maktabat jāmi’at Kāmbiridj/Arabic geographic manuscripts in the British Library and Cambridge University Library
Kuwait: Maktabat al-Amal, 1999. 

Hamilton, Alastair. 
William Bedwell, the Arabist, 1563-1632. 
Leiden: Brill for Sir Thomas Browne Institute, 1985.

Lewis, Bernard & Holt, P.M. (eds)
Historians of the Middle East.
London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1962.

Irwin, Robert. 
For lust of knowing: the orientalists and their enemies
London: Allen Lane, 2006 .

Lee, Samuel
The travels of Ibn Batūta : translated from the abridged manuscript copies, preserved in the public library of Cambridge with notes, illustrative of the history, geography, botany, antiquities, &c. occurring through the work. CUL Manuscript. Qq.203-5.

Lewis, Bernard.
British contributions to Arabic studies,with a preface by A.J. Arberry.
London, New York: The British Council by Longmans, [1941]

McLoughlin, Leslie J.
In a sea of  knowledge: British Arabists in the twentieth century.
Reading : Ithaca Press, c2002.

McKitterick, David
Cambridge University Library : a history. [2], The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Nizamu’d-Din, A.M. A classified list of the selected Adie mss and lithographed works. .. [with notes by E.G. Browne]. Camb. Ms. Or.1749. 38 Arabic and Persian MSS presented in 1924 by Walter Sibbald Adie (1872-1956), Indian Civil Service, Fellow of Trinity College.

Oates, J.C.T 
Abraham Whelock, 1593-1653: orientalist : Anglo-Saxonist, & University Librarian. 
[Cambridge, 1966]. Sandars Lectures in Bibliography; 1966

Oates, J.C.T 
Cambridge University Library : a history. [1], From the beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Ploeg, J.P.M. van der
Christians of St. Thomas in South India and their Syriac manuscripts. 
Bangalore : Published [for] Center for Indian and Inter-Religious Studies, Rome, 1983.

Preston, Theodore
Catalogus bibliothecae Burckhardtianae, cum appendice librorum aliorum orientalium in Bibliotheca Academiæ Cantabrigiensis asservatorum.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1853.

Stewart, H.F.
Francis Jenkinson , Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge and University Librarian; a memoir 
Cambridge, 1926.

Toomer, Gerald James. 
Eastern wisedome and learning: the study of Arabic in seventeenth-century England. 
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996.

Wollmann, Therese
Scheich Ibrahim : die Reisen des Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, [1784-1817] 
Basel : Historisches Museum : F. Reinhardt Kommissionsverlag, 1984.

 

Periodical articles and book chapters

Abrahams, I.
‘Isaac Abendana’s Cambridge Mishnah and Oxford Calendars’.
Transactions of the Jewish Society of England, 1915-17, 98-121

Abrahams, I & Sayle, C.E.
Faraji and Thomason
Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, v.8, 1915-17, 63-78.

Ansorge, C.
Cambridge University Library Islamic manuscripts collection; origins and content
Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 2016, 7 (2), 127-151.

Ansorge, C.
Study and travel: John Lewis Burckhardt's remarkable journey trced through archives and manuscripts in Cambridge University Library.
Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, XVI, Part 3, 2018, 455-486.

Berhane, Demeke & Delamarter, Steve
Description of an uncatalogued Ethiopian manuscript in the Cambridge University Library 
donated by Dr B.E. Beck

Bosworth, C.E.
‘Orientalism and orientalists’
 in Arab Islamic bibliography: the Middle East Library Committee guide. 
Hassocks, Sussex, 1977, 154-155

Browne, E.G.
Catalogue and description of 27 Babi Manuscripts.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1892, 259-260.

Browne, Edward Granville
Description of an Old Persian commentary on the Qur’an 
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1894, 417-524

Browne, Edward Granville
Note on an Apparently Unique Manuscript History of the Safawi Dynasty of Persia.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1921, No. 3, 395-418

Browne, Edward Granville
The Persian manuscripts of the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler, K.C.I.E. (now in Cambridge)
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Oct., 1917, 657-694.

Buck, Christopher & Ioanneysan, Youli A.
Baha'u'llah's Bishārāt (Glad tidings): a proclamation to scholars and statesmen.
Baha'i Studies Review, No. 16, 2010, 3-28

Burkitt, F.C.
The Buchanan manuscripts at Cambridge.
Kerala Society Papers, v.1, 1929, p.42

Butterworth, J.
Some sources for Qajar history in the E.G. Browne Papers and one other manuscript.
Actes MELCOM 10e, 21-26
Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe, 1989.

Ceadel, A.B.  
A survey of Oriental studies in Great Britain 
Far Eastern Quarterly, 12, 1953, 383-391

Clackson, Sarah
An unedited leaf of Genesis in Cambridge Univertsity Library (P.Camb.UL Or.1699 II i).
Bulletin of the Americal Society of papyrologists, 35 (1998) 135-143

Clackson, Sarah
The Michaelides Coptic manuscript Collection in the Cambridge University Library and British Library.
Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Vol. 2, 1993, 123-138

Clackson, Sarah J. 
The Michaelides manuscript collection, 
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 100, 1994, 223-226.

Cowley, A. 
Two Aramaic Ostraka
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1929, 107-112

Cohen, A.
Hebrew incunabula in Cambridge.
Jewish Quarterly Review, v.19, n.76, 1907, pp. 744-750 and v. 20, n.79, 1908, 464-5

Crossley, J.N. & Henry, A.S.
Thus spake al-Khwārizmī: a translation of the text of Cambridge University Library Ms.Ii.vi.5
History of Mathematics papers, 42, p.49
Clayton, Monash University, Department of Mathematics, 1988.

Dalby, A.K.
The Michaelides Mnauscript Collection
Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 100, 1994, 223-226

De Lange, N.R.M.
Books and bookmen: the Cambridge teachers of Rabbinics 1866-1971.
Jewish Historical Studies, 44, 2012, 139-163.

Dunkelgrün, T.
Solomon Schechter; a Jewish scholar in Victorian England. (1882-1902)
Jewish Historical Studies, 48 (1), 2017, 1-8.

Dunkelgrün, T.
When Solomon met Solomon: a medieval Hebrew Bible in Victorian Cambridge
Journal of the Bible and its Reception, 3 (2), 2016, 205-253.

Eck, W.
The manuscripts of Thomas Erpenius.
Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, Occasional Publications, 1, 1974, 1-17.

Edwards, E. 
Some rare and important Arabic and Persian manuscripts from the collections of Hājjī 'Abdu'l-Majīd Belshāh; now either in the British Museum or in the private collection of Professor Edward G. Browne.
in: A volume of Oriental studies presented to Edward G. Browne on his 60th birthday, ed. T.W. Arnold and Reynold A. Nicholson.
Cambridge, CUP, 1922, 137-149.

Fedeli, Alba 
The digitization project for the Qu'rānic palimpsest, MS Cambridge University Library Or.1287, and the verification of the Mingana-Lewis edition: where is salām?
Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 2011, No 2:1, pp. 100-117, 121

Fedeli, A.
Mingana and the manuscript of Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis, one century later.
Manuscripta Orientalia; International Journal for Oriental Manuscript Research, 
Vol. 11, No.3, 2005, 1-5

George, Alain
Le palimpseste Lewis-Mingana de Cambridge, temoin ancient de l’histoire du Coran.
Comptes Rendus Academie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres, Jan-Mar, 2011, 377-429

Goodman, A.E.
The Jenks collection of Syriac manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1939, 581-600.

Grohman, A.
Ein bemerkenswerter Papyrus der Sammlung George Michaeilides in Kairo.
Wiener Zeitschrift fur die  Kunde des Morgenlandes, v. 54, 1957, 51-4.

Hamilton, Alastair
‘The victims of progress, the Raphelengius Arabic type and Bedwells’ Arabic Lexicon.
Bulletin der Antwerpshce Bibliophielen, 61-3 (1983-5), 97-108.

Harvey, L.P.
Un manuscrito aljamiado en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Cambridge.
[Ms. Dd.9.49  (1348) Treatise on Islamic rituals and law in Spanish written in Arabic script]
Al-Andalus, no.23, 1958, 49-74.

Henshke, Yehudit
Gutturals in Ms Cambridge of the mishnah: a historical-linguistic study of rabbinic Hebrew traditions. 
Hebrew studies, v. 52, 171 - 200

Hunt, Lucy-Anne 
Illustrating the Gospels in Arabic: Byzantine and Arab Christian miniatures in two manuscripts of the early Mamlūk period in Cambridge.
in The Bible in Arab Christianity, ed. David Thomas, 325-349.
Leiden, Brill, 2007.

Jones, John Robert
Thomas Erpenius (1584-1624) on the value of the Arabic Language.
Manuscripts of the Middle East, 1 (1986), 15-25.

Lockwood, W.A.
The Orientalist collections of Cambridge University Library.
SCONUL Advisory Committee on Orientalist material: Report of the Conferences and Annual Meetings, 1982, 5-10

Melville, C.P.
Noters on some manuscrpts of 'Abd-Allah Hatifi's Timurnama in Cambridge University Collections
Asiatica, 12 (2), 2018, 54-68.

Norris, H.T.
Edmund Castell (1606-86) and his Lexicon Heptaglotton (1669)
in Russell. The ‘Arabick’ interest of the Natural Philosophers, 7-87.

Norris, H.T.
Professor Edmund Castell (1606-85), Orientalist and Divine, and England’s Oldest Arabic Inscription.
Journal of Semitic Studies, v. 29, 1984, 155-67.

Oates, J.C.T.
The manuscripts of Thomas Erpenius.
Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, Occasional Publications, 1, 1974, 1-17.

Polat, Sulayman
Uncataolgued Turkish manuscripts in the collection of the Cambridge University Library.
Turkish Historical Review, 3, 2012, 42-89.

Rabinowicz, H.
Cambridge University Library
The Jewish Quarterly Review, New series, V. 53, no.1, 1962, 69-76

Reif, S., Khan, G.A., Isaacs, H.D., & Butterworth J.
Introduction to Islamic material in the Cambridge University Library
Maghreb Review, No. 12, 1988, 128-130.

Rezvan, E.
Mingana folios: when and why
Manuscripta Orientalia; International Journal for Oriental Manuscript Research, 
Vol. 11, No.4, 2005, 5-9

Roper, G.J.
Ahmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (d.1887) in Cambridge
Cambridge Bibliographical Society Newsletter, Summer 1996, 5-8

Roper, G.J.
Arabic printing and publishing in England before 1820
British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Bulletin, 12:1, 12-32

Roper, G.J.
George Percy Badger
Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 1984, 140-155

Rose, Kristine
The conservation of a seventeenth-century Persian Shahnama
In: Edinburgh Conference Papers, 2006. Edited by Shulla Jaques. 
London: Institute of Conservation, 2007, 79-86.

Rose, Kristine     
The Conservation of Islamic Manuscript Material at Cambridge
University Library, with Particular reference to Ms. Add. 269.
InPembroke papers, Volume 5. Edited by Charles Melville. 
Cambridge: Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 2006, 277-286.

Schaefer, Karl R. 
Eleven Medieval Arabic block prints in the Cambridge University Library.
Arabica, v. 48, Fasc. 2, 2001, 210-239.

Schechter, S.
Notes on Hebrew manscripts in the University Library at Cambridge.
Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 6, no 21, Oct. 1893, 136-145

The Taylor gift of Hebrew books in Cambridge,
Jewish Chronicle, no. 2078 (29 January 1909), 21-2.

Uljas, Sami
A leaf of the Coptic Martyrdom of Ptolemy in Cambridge
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 178, 2011, 179-184

Uljas, Sami
The Cambridge leaves of the Life of Moses of Abydos
Le Museon, 125 (1-2), 2012, 1-33

Uljas, Sami
Lost Coptic texts from Herbert Thompson papers: 1 The acts of Stephen
Journal fo Coptic Studies, 15, 2015, 165-213

Yeates, T.
Buchanan collection.
Christian Observer, n.9, 1810, 26, 144-6, 273-5, 348-50, 426-7, 609-10

Zutshi, P.N.R.
An early medical manuscript returns to Cambridge.
Bulletin of the Friends of the Cambridge University Library, No. 15, 7-8