Harvard Library Collects Islamic Titles

As early as 1648, Harvard’s first president, Henry Dunster, sought out Arabic books from Europe for Harvard’s collection. However, the number and titles of works related to Islam and Muslims in Harvard’s library in this early period are unknown. After a catastrophic fire burned down the Harvard Library in 1764, donations to rebuild the collection included a work on Islamic theology, which the library acquired in 1766 (right). By 1830, the library catalog included over 50 Islamicate titles such as George Sale’s English translation of the Qur’an, Latin translations of the Arabic poetry of Imruʾ al-Qays and Kaʿb b. Zuhayr, Arabic dictionaries and grammars, works on Islamic history and the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and a Persian manuscript of Saadi’s Gulistan. In the early 20th century, Professors James R. Jewett and William Thomson acquired classical Arabic works from the Bulaq Press in Cairo as well as Western critical editions. While most Islamicate acquisitions in this period were in Arabic, titles in other languages increased in the mid-20th century thanks to the efforts of Professor Richard Frye, who acquired Persian materials, and Professor Stanford Shaw, who acquired Ottoman Turkish materials. The founding of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in 1954 and appointment of Professor Hamilton Gibb in 1955 led to a substantial growth in the number of Arabic works, particularly modern works, including periodicals. In 1956 the library hired its first full-time cataloger of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish materials, Flora Rizk, and in 1961 created the Middle Eastern Division. In 2005, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s gift to Harvard made possible the Islamic Heritage Project that cataloged, conserved, and digitized hundreds of Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts in Harvard’s library and museum collections and made them available to researchers worldwide.