Medieval Middle East History
This Web page is of interest to students in HIST 492 (Capstone Seminar), HIST 115 (Islamic World to 1800), HIST 433 (Muhammad and the Origins of Islam), and HIST 434 (The Crusades in the Near East). However, anyone doing research or interested in the medieval or modern Middle East and North Africa should find it useful. The Middle East and North Africa are generally defined by historians as the territory that spans from Morocco in the west to Pakistan in the East. See also Medieval History for Europe and Great Britain.
Reference | Web Sites | Books | Indexes (identify journal articles)
These materials are quite useful for finding background information and can be a great starting point for learning names, dates, terms, etc. Look at the end of each entry for bibliographies.
- Encyclopaedia of Islam. 12 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1960- . Includes supplemental indexes. DS 35.53 .E523 Reference
Use index of proper names, glossary and index of terms, and index of subjects to use this encyclopedia. Terms are not necessarily findable under the English language term, so use of the indexes is highly recommended. - Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P., and Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay. Historical Atlas of Islam. New York: Continuum, 2002. G 1786 .S1 F7 2002 Reference
- Humphreys, Stephen. Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. Rev. ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Z 3014 .H55 H85 1991 Movable Shelves
- Lindsay, James E. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. DS 36.85 .L56 2005 Morgan
- Martin, Richard C., ed. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan Reference: Thomson/Gale, 2004. BP 40 .E525 2004 Reference and online to CSU affiliates
- Mattar, Philip, ed. Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East & North Africa. 4 vols. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2004. DS 43 .E53 2004 Reference and online to CSU affiliates
- McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2001- . BP 133 .E53 2001 Reference
- Nicolle, David. Historical Atlas of the Islamic World. New York: Checkmark Books, 2003. G 1786.S1 N5 2003 Maps
- Turner, Jane, ed. Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. New York: New Grove, 1996. N 31 .D5 1996 Reference. Also online as Art Online to CSU affiliates.
Useful for art and architecture.
The following sites have materials of interest to those doing research in Medieval Middle East history.
Art and Architecture | Coins | Maps, Photographs | Texts, Primary Sources | Web Links | Women
ArchNet. MIT School of Architecture and Planning and the University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture, in close cooperation with, and with the full support of The Aga Khan Trust for Culture
"ArchNet is an international online community for architects, planners, urban designers, landscape architects, conservationists, and scholars, with a focus on Muslim cultures and civilisations." Numerous digital images in the digital library. Digital library historic sites are arranged by country, building type, building style, building usage, century, and site name. (Contemporary sites have similar arrangement, but by decade, not century, beginning with 1900.) Publications are by Special Collections, document type, language, author name, title, articles related to building type, articles related to country, and keywords. Registration is requested--see Legal Notes (foot of major pages) for guidelines.
Art of the Middle Ages: Islamic. Dr. Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe. Department of Art History, Sweet Briar College, Virginia.
Links to images of items found in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and other locations.
Early Islamic Coins. James N. Roberts.
"[A] noncommercial site dealing with the coins of early Islam, dating from about 690 to 1500 AD. The concentration here is exclusively on the silver and copper coins struck in Europe and northern Africa and in western and central Asia, excluding the Indian subcontinent." Reading the introduction is recommended for first time visitors. Items are arranged by:
The Early Arab Empire, Spanish Umayyads and their Successors, Fragments of the Abbasid Caliphate, The Seljuq-Ayyubid Period, The Mamluks, Turkish Beyliks and the Ottomans, and The Mongols and their Successors. Click on blue-rimmed images to enlarge them.
Glass Weights, Vessel Stamps & Ring Weights in the Gayer-Anderson Museum, Cairo [Mathaf Bayt al-Kritiliyya]. Dr. Sebastian Heath with assistance from Ms. Aviva Gray. American Numismatic Society - Digital Publications Project.
Included on this Web site is "every Islamic stamped glass in the Gayer-Anderson Museum," but no attempt was made to analyze said items. See the introduction (in English and Arabic) for a history and explanation of the collection. The catalog can be search by keyword. "This digital publication is being actively edited and should be treated as an in-progress draft." Nevertheless, already extensive.
Islamic Coin Cabinet. Michael L. Bates. Curator of Islamic Coins. The American Numismatic Society.
History of the Islamic coin collection at the society, bibliography ("intended to include all works on the subject published after Walker's 1956 British Museum catalogue, as well as a few earlier works that retain some interest"), arrangement of coins in the collection, etc. [Note, neither Walker, John. British Museum. Dept. of Coins and Medals. A Catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and Post-Reform Umaiyad Coins. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1956 or Walker, John. British Museum., Dept. of Coins and Medals. A Catalogue of the Muhammadan Coins in the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1956 is available in Colorado.]
ZENO.RU - Oriental Coins Database.
Thousands of photos and comments (e.g. about the width thereof) about coins.
Maps and Images. Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Includes section on Islam.
Middle East Photograph Archive. University of Chicago Library.
" Most of the photographs in the Middle East Department's archive date to the second half of the nineteenth century." A number of images are available online. Click on the small image to display a larger one.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Historical Maps of the Middle East. University of Texas at Austin.
Extensive collection of maps. Links to Historical Middle East Maps on other sites. See also Middle East Maps.
Picture Album from the Islamic World. Arabic @ Penn. University of Pennsylvania.
Very few links, but relevant images. (Music and film selections currently not available.)
Ancient and Medieval Middle East. Columbia University Libraries.
Links to materials on the Web. Many primary source materials.
Compendium of Muslim Texts. University of Southern California.
Extensive and full text information about Allah, Muhammad, Qur'an (three translations), Sunnah, and Pillars. Includes special topics, glossary, and search tools.
Internet Islamic History Sourcebook. Paul Halsall. Fordham University.
This page is "a subset of texts derived from the three major online Sourcebooks listed below, along with added texts and web site indicators."
Islamic Medieval Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine. National Library of Medicine.
Manuscripts related to medicine. Extensive. Includes images of some primary materials. Concordances have links to materials. See also listing by Authors, Translators, and Commentators of Treatises. Note within the useful Glossary of Terms.
Libro: The Library of Iberian Resources Online. American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain.
Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy. African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of CongressFull text books online on Medieval Spain. "The Library of Iberian Resources Online (LIBRO) is a joint project of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain and the University of Central Arkansas. Its task is to make available to users the best scholarship about the peoples and nations of the Iberian peninsula. Consequently, the book list is principally drawn from recent, but out-of-print university press monographs. In addition, the collection includes a number of basic texts and sources in translation. These are presented in full-text format and reproduce all the matter included in the original print version. The collection focuses upon peninsular history from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries." Author catalog and title catalog list authors and titles alphabetically. The Search (all or any) looks for word(s) within texts.
"This presentation exhibits 355 Arabic calligraphy sheets, ranging from the 9th to the 19th centuries. A majority of the calligraphy sheets were written on paper, however, a group of Qur’anic fragments from the 9th and 10th centuries were inscribed on parchment." Bibliography of sources. Special presentations of: Calligraphers of the Persian Tradition, Ottoman Calligraphers and Their Works, Qur'anic Fragments, and Noteworthy Items. Search by keyword; browse by: calligrapher, titles, or subjects.
Middle East. Digital Librarian. Margaret Vail Anderson. Cortland, New York.
Links to multiple sites. Contemporary as well as past history.
Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East.
Click on "Crusade links" on the left-hand side for a short list of links to Web pages with information about the Crusades. (Not all links are active.)
The Islamic World. © Paul Halsall, November1998. Last Updated April 16, 2007. Internet Women's History Sourcebook. Fordham University.
General, great women, women's oppression, the structure of women's lives, women's agency, apologetics, feminism, and gender construction. Subset of Islamic History Sourcebook.
Women and Islam Syllabus. Marianne Kamp. University of Wyoming.
Has useful bibliography broken down topically and geographically in addition to annotated Web links relating to women and islam. Required books and reserve list has other titles of interest.
Women in the Ancient Near East: A Select Bibliography of Recent Sources in The Oriental Institute Research Archives. Compiled by Terry G. Wilfong.
"The present bibliography is limited to monographic acquisitions of The Research Archives over the past five years; it also includes individual articles in publications acquired since 1990 and a few items awaiting formal accession."
Women in the Islamic World. Deborah Vess. HIST 4950/WMST 4950. Women in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Georgia College & State University.
Links out to sites that cover women in medival Islamic times and places. From a univeristy course.
Books are a key resource for information about the Medieval period. The subject headings listed in this section can be used to find books related to Middle East Medieval history topics in any library catalog which uses Library of Congress Subject Headings, including CSU's SAGE (it is not an exhaustive list). Do a subject search using the terms below to identify books in SAGE and Prospector (the Colorado Union Catalog). Books may be requested from Prospector by CSU affiliates (establish a PIN in SAGE first).
Art, Islamic -- Iran |
Islamic Empire History 750 1258 |
Most Medieval history research is done in books (and now the Web for primary sources). There are journal articles, but they are more easily identified in the bibliographies of books or via book-length bibliographies. That said, there are useful journal articles which must not be neglected! Use the bibliographies of these articles as resources for additional sources.
These indexes may also be accessed by CSU affiliates via the "Databases" pages.
Electronic Collections Online (ECO). 1995- .
Broad subjects, that include islamic topics.
Historical Abstracts. 1954- .
Covers the Western world including the Middle East.
JSTOR. Full text articles at least 3-5 years old (varies by journal).
A useful index for Medievalists. Full text or linked to full text for more recent articles (most of them). Select "History" journals after typing in search term(s). Also select other groups of journals (or specific titles), depending upon the topic being researched: Art & Art History, Language & Literature, Philosophy, etc. Journals of interest to Medieval Islamic topics include (links take you to title):
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 1991-2004
Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) 1974-1990
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1940-2002
Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 1917-1940
International Journal of Middle East Studies 1970-2002
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1942-2002
American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 1895-1941
Hebraica 1884-1895
Journal of the American Oriental Society 1843-2004
Muqarnas 1983-2002
Oriens 1948-2001
Studia Islamica 1953-2003
Die Welt des Islams 1913-2002
Humanities International Index. Varies. Different publisher, similar subject coverage: Humanities Index. AI 3 .I495 Reference South 1974-98.
Core journals dealing with history, literature, and other humanities. Good coverage of humanities topics such as: Medieval period, 1066-1485.
Index Islamacus. 1906-80; 1985-90, 1993- . DS 41 .I54223 Reference South
Core index for topics related to Islam--religion, history, people, etc. See below for 1985-1993. Not published 1981-5.
The Quarterly Index Islamicus . DS 41 .I5422 (1985-1993) Reference South
Core index for topics related to Islam--religion, history, people, etc. See above for years under different title.
Full text articles (view in PDF), with a nice cross section of Medieval history topics.
Content: Naomi Lederer