Islamicate Manuscripts Initiative

UCLA Library's collection of Islamicate and Arabic-script manuscripts ranks as the second largest in North America, though most remain unexplored, under-described and inaccessible. These volumes encompass a range of languages, subjects, locations and time periods of manuscript production across North Africa, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and Central and South Asia, dating from 1100 to 1930. Spread across 20 diverse sub-collections, the texts within these volumes represent works by Muslims and non-Muslims in areas under Muslim rule and contain important records of the religious, scientific, cultural and literary production across the centuries. They include works of historical importance in medicine, literature, philology, lexicography, theology, jurisprudence, history, philosophy, logic, mysticism, astrology and astronomy. UCLA’s broad holdings include texts in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Urdu and Pashto and provide an important window into the significant intellectual output and global impact of Muslim communities over nearly a millennia.

We welcome inquiries about the collection. Email UCLA Library Special Collections at AskLSC@library.ucla.edu(opens in a new tab).

UCLA Librarians and Library Staff

The Islamic Manuscripts Initiative team includes librarians and library staff with expertise in area studies, special collections, rare book cataloging, Islamic manuscript culture, digital collection development, metadata creation, digital access, digital stewardship and paper conservation.

Jennifer Osorio is the director of UCLA Library Special Collections and has worked to increase access to rare and unique primary source materials for diverse user communities in ethical and transparent ways.

Sohaib Baig is the Middle East, South Asian and Islamic studies librarian at UCLA Library and is committed to making more of the Library’s robust Middle East and Islamic Studies collections accessible through description and digitization. This includes strengthening relationships with Los Angeles’ large Iranian, Arab and South Asian communities, along with other communities connected to the Islamic world. Prior to coming to UCLA, Baig was a Research Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program in Islamic Law. Baig is also an active member of the Muslim community in Orange County, California and gives talks on Islamic history at local institutions.

William Stalls is the collection assistant for Middle Eastern and Islamic materials. He received an M.A. in Arabic from UCLA in 2019 and holds advanced certifications in Pashto and Persian. Stalls oversees the work of several graduate students from UCLA’s program in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Abigail Connick is the cataloging and metadata librarian for UCLA Library Special Collections. As Head Cataloger for LSC, Connick oversees description and metadata for the IMI. She received her M.S.L.I.S. with a certification in Special Collections from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017. She is an experienced rare book cataloger and developed and implemented the Initiative’s workflow and description standards.

Elizabeth McAulay is the head of the UCLA Library Digital Library Program and works collaboratively within the UCLA Library, across campus, and with a broad range of partners to preserve and provide enhanced access to local and global cultural heritage materials.

Consuela (Chela) Metzger is a book conservator and librarian. She has been a book conservation faculty in two conservation graduate programs and has been a professional book conservator at The Huntington Library, University of Michigan Library, Winterthur Library and the UCLA Library. She is currently Affiliated Associate Professor in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Graduate Program in Art Conservation and head of the Preservation & Conservation Department at UCLA Library. She publishes occasionally on bookbinding history.

IMI Student Scholars

IMI Student Scholars apply their critical language and cultural expertise to catalog and describe Islamicate and Arabic-script manuscripts across our collections.

Khalilullah Afzali is a specialist in Persian literature and manuscript culture. Afzali's research and teaching focuses on codicology, Sufism, literary history and Bidel studies. He is a visiting assistant professor at the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, where he teaches graduate seminars and conducts research. He is the founder of the Baysunghur Research Institute in Afghanistan, which focuses on studying and preserving the literary, cultural and historical heritage of Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran.

Mahsa Pashaei is a Ph.D. candidate in Iranian Studies at UCLA. Her research interests focus on the symbolism of the mythical and mystical bird Sīmurḡ in Persian literature from the 10th to the 13th century. She holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, where her thesis focused on the analysis, annotation and translation of Fużūlī's "Beng ü Bāde."

Azeem Malik is a Ph.D. candidate in the Islamic Studies Program at UCLA. His research interests include Persian poetry, Sufism and Timurid intellectual and cultural history. His current dissertation project is a study of Jāmi's (d. 1492) verse romance, Yusof o Zuleykhā. He obtained his M.A. in Islamic Studies from UCLA in 2021 and his A.B. in Religious Studies from Brown University in 2018.

Deniz Çıtak is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the UCLA History Department focusing on Ottoman and Iranian diplomatic history in the nineteenth century. His expertise includes modern Middle East history, politics and culture and the Turkish, Persian and Arabic languages. Deniz previously earned an M.Sc. in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics. After completing his undergraduate studies at Georgetown University, he worked at the Atlantic Council and the United Nations.

Saad ShaukatI is a Ph.D. candidate in the Islamic Studies Program at UCLA whose work focuses on medieval and early modern Islamic intellectual history. His dissertation project examines the role of commentaries in the post-classical period of Islamic philosophical theology with an emphasis on the issues of infinity, causality and proofs of God's existence. Saad previously received an M.A. in Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley.