Research Guides: ARTH 384: Treasures of Medieval Islamic Art: Web and Reference Sources

Selected Electronic Resources

Archnet
A comprehensive scholarly resource for the built environment of Muslim societies.
Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)
Alphabetical list of Open Access Islamic Manuscripts Collections. 65 collections as of July 12, 2021.
Europeana
This database provides digital access to over 23 million objects, from more than 2200 participating institutions in 34 countries. The database includes more than 10,000 Islamic art objects and hundreds of Islamic manuscripts, some of them digitized in full.
Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys
The Islamic Art Spots are seven visual essays, presented in a series of short films designed to make art from Muslim societies an integral part of the Muslim Journeys experience.
Aramco World

Museum Websites

Harvard Libraries and Museums: Islamic Heritage Project
A digital collection of Islamic manuscripts, published texts, and maps from across Harvard's libraries and museums.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The MFA’s collection of Islamic art encompasses works from countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, as well as works created across the globe within Islamic communities or societies.
The Cleveland Museum of Art
The collection of art from Islamic lands is also well known. Most of the 178 artworks were made in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey during the 8th through 17th centuries in ceramic, metalwork, glass, and on parchment and paper. The strongest holdings are in miniature paintings. In addition, the textile collection of about 450 examples ranks among the finest in the world.
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art
The phrases “arts of the Islamic World” and “Islamic art” refer to a variety of artistic traditions that have flourished in a vast geographic region—from southern Spain and North Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia since the advent of Islam in the late seventh century. While different cities and regions developed their own distinct secular and religious visual language, they also share certain formal and aesthetic concerns. The Freer and Sackler together hold one of the country’s finest collections of the arts of the Islamic world, with particular strengths in illustrated manuscripts and ceramics among the more than 2,200 objects.
Metropolitan Museum Of Art New York
The Met's collection of Islamic art ranges in date from the seventh to the twenty-first century. Its more than 15,000 objects reflect the great diversity and range of the cultural traditions of Islam, with works from as far westward as Spain and Morocco and as far eastward as Central Asia and Indonesia. Comprising both sacred and secular objects, the collection reveals the mutual influence of artistic practices such as calligraphy, and the exchange of motifs such as vegetal ornament (the arabesque) and geometric patterning in both realms.
Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts
The Princeton University Library has some 9,500 Islamic manuscripts, chiefly bound paper codices, containing a total of more than 20,000 texts.
Walters Art Museum
The Walters’ collection of Islamic Manuscripts showcases masterpieces of illuminated and illustrated manuscripts. The sacred, devotional and non-religious manuscripts presented here were created across the breadth of the Islamic world and date from the 9th through the 19th century.
The Morgan Library & Museum
Since Islam refers to both the religious faith and civilization of Muslims, this online exhibition includes both religious and secular texts.
Aga Kahn Museum
The Aga Khan Museum presents and collects art from historically significant Muslim civilizations as well as contemporary Muslim communities and diasporas around the world. The core of its Permanent Collection — spanning a vast geographic area from Spain and North Africa in the west, across the Middle East, to South Asia and China in the east — was assembled by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (1933–2003), uncle of His Highness, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV.
The British Museum
The Department of the Middle East covers the ancient and contemporary civilisations and cultures of the Middle East from the Neolithic period until the present. It holds a wide range of archaeological material and ancient art from Mesopotamia (Iraq), Iran, the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel); Anatolia (Turkey), Arabia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Chester Beatty Library
The Qur’an is the sacred text of Islam. First memorised in Arabic in the seventh century, it has been revered as a written book ever since. There are over 250 copies or partial copies of the Qur’an in the Chester Beatty, produced in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, India and many other places, and ranging from the early 8th to 19th centuries. The collection also includes important texts on pilgrimage, prayer and Islamic history.
Victoria & Albert Museum
The V&A holds over 19,000 items from the Middle East and North Africa, ranging from the early Islamic period (the 7th century) to the early 20th century.
Musée du Louvre
Endowed with more than 14,000 objects and admirably completed by the 3,500 works deposited by the Museum of Decorative Arts, the collection of the Department of Islamic Arts bears witness to the richness and diversity of artistic creations from the lands of Islam. between the 7th and the 19th century, from Spain to India.
Islamic Art Virtual Museum
The material – objects and monuments – contributed by the Partners from the 14 countries who, between 2004 and 2007, set up the Discover Islamic Art Virtual Museum with the support of the European Union’s Euromed Heritage programme. Descriptions are available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish as well as in the language of the country. Objects contributed by Partners through the project Explore Islamic Art Collections, launched in 2009 with the aim of expanding the Virtual Museum’s Database. In this case, Database entries are shorter and available in English and, for some countries, also in the country’s language.

Online Reference Sources

Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online offers access to the most authoritative, inclusive, and easily searchable online art resources available today.

Primary Sources

Primary sources are the evidence of history, original records or objects created by participants or observers at the time historical events occurred or even well after events, as in memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include but are not limited to: letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, maps, architectural plans, speeches, interviews, documents produced by government agencies, photographs, audio or video recordings, born-digital items (e.g. emails), research data, and objects or artifacts (such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons). These sources serve as the raw materials historians use to interpret and analyze the past.