REFERENCE BOOKS

Batoota — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:30:20 +0000

REFERENCE BOOKS. Islamic civilization has always attached the greatest importance to the written word, and to books as vital sources of knowledge and guidance.

But systematic access to this knowledge requires not just texts for reading, but also works which can be consulted for answers to specific questions and guidance to relevant material elsewhere. Such reference works were developed on an unprecedented scale in the classical periods of Muslim civilization, and the tradition has continued into modern times. The development of Islamic studies in the West, by Orientalists and others, has also led to the creation of research tools for scholarly reference; some have been adopted or adapted by Muslim scholars or have inspired the further development of reference materials.
Scripture, Traditions, and Law. The first and most important work of reference in Islam is of course the Qur’an itself. The widespread practice of memorizing the text has traditionally enabled relevant passages to be cited by scholars and others in any given situation. In recent times, however, the relative decline of this practice has necessitated other means of access, and concordances and glossaries of Qur’anic words and phrases have appeared. One of the earliest was Nujum al -furqan by Mustafa ibn Muhammad Said, compiled in Mughal India, first published in Calcutta in 1811, and reprinted several times in the nineteenth century, despite its errors and omissions. In 1842 the German Orientalist Gustav Fluegel published his own famous concordance under the same Arabic title, more commonly known as Concordantiae Corani Arabicae (Leipzig, 1842; reprinted several times, most recently in Lahore, 1978). This has remained a standard rapid reference tool. The Arabic words are arranged under their root letters, with references to surah and verse numbers; however, it lacks contextual quotations, a deficiency made good by later compilations. Notable among the latter is Muhammad Fu’ad `Abd al-Baqi’s Al-mu`jam al-mufahras li-alfaz alQur’an. al -Karim (Cairo, 1945 reprint, 1987), which is probably now the most widely used of the monoglot Arabic concordances; unlike Fluegel, it refers to the standard Egyptian recension of the text. Arranged on somewhat different principles is Mahmud Ruhani’s Almu’jam al-ihsa’i li-alfdz al-Qur’dn al-Karim (A Statistical Dictionary of Qur’anic Words, 3 vols., Mashhad, 19871990), which includes separate indexes for the Meccan and Medinan surahs, with word frequency counts, and is arranged in alphabetical order of the forms in the text, rather than by root letters.
The need of millions of non-Arabs for access to the Qur’anic text has given rise to the compilation of concordances and indexes in foreign languages, both Muslim and non-Muslim. In Urdu, for instance, there is Mazhar al-Din Multani’s Miftdh al-Qur’an (Lahore, 197o), and in Indonesian, Nazwar Syamsu’s Dictionary al-Qur’an (Jakarta, 1977). For English readers, Altaf Ahmad Kherie’s A Key to the Holy Quran: Index-cumConcordance (Karachi, 1974-) is thematically arranged and refers to the edition and translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali; in Hanna E. Kassis’s A Concordance of the Qur’dn (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983) the Arabic words are given in romanization, arranged by roots, with English meanings, followed by references to and contextual quotations from Arberry’s English translation, and alphabetical indexes of English terms at the end. In Arabic, English, and Urdu is Ahmad Shah’s Miftah-ul-Quran (Benares, 1906, 2 vols.; recently reprinted in Lahore, n.d.).
Many readers of the Qur’an also need dictionaries and glossaries to enable them to understand certain words. In Arabic there is the important Mu`jam alfaz al-Quran al -Karim (Cairo, 1953-1970 2 vols.), prepared by the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo: this gives all the words, arranged by roots, with both definitions and contextual quotations. Most other Arabic glossaries have concentrated on difficult, unusual, or foreign vocabulary. English-speaking readers can consult John Penrice’s A Dictionary and Glossary of the Kor-dn (London, 1873; reprinted several times, most recently in Delhi, 1987), as well as the second part of Ahmad Shah’s Miftah-ul-Quran, mentioned above. More extended didactic treatment of selected words and phrases is given in two recent English-language compilations: Mustansir Mir’s Dictionary of Qur’dnic Terms and Concepts (New York, 1987) and Faruq Sherif’s A Guide to the Contents of the Qur’an (London, 1985).
The great works of exegesis (tafsir) are traditionally regarded as essential to an understanding of the Qur’an. There is also a concordance to the Qur’anic verses as they appear in two of the greatest of these commentaries: Daud Rahbar’s Indices to the Verses of the Quran in the Commentaries of al-Tabari and al-Razi (Hartford, 1962).
Concordances as such may eventually be rendered redundant by the development of electronic handling of the Qur’anic text. The Islamic School in Cleveland, Ohio, provides the complete text on-line, accessible via the main networks, and there are several other such projects underway both in the Muslim world and elsewhere. They can provide the facility, either by on-line database or on disks, to search for any word or group of words, which can then be located in their contexts.
This can apply equally to the Arabic text and to translations. An English version of the Qur’an with subject indexes has been published on CD-ROM in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
The other great canonical source of authority for Muslims, after the Qur’an, is the hadith, or record of sayings and deeds of the Prophet. The vital need for concordances and indexes to this large body of texts was met in earlier times by a number of compilations; the modern reader is most likely to turn to Arent Jan Wensinck’s Al-mu`jam al-mufahras li-alfaz al-hadith alnabawi/Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane (Leiden, 1936-1988, 8 vols.; reprint, Leiden, 1992) and the same author’s more abbreviated English manual, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition, Alphabetically Arranged (Leiden, 1927; Arabic version, Miftdh kunuz al-sunnah, Cairo, 1934). An elaborate set of indexes to these works is provided by Muhammad Fu’ad `Abd al-Baqi in his Taysir al-manfa`ah (Cairo, 1935-1939 8 vols.). The four great Shi’i collections are indexed in Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Kazimi’s Miftdh al-kutub alarba’ah (Najaf, 1967). The famous compilation of sayings of Imam `All, especially important for Shi’is, has likewise been provided with a concordance: Muhammad Dashti’s Al-mu`jam al-mufahras li-alfaz Nahj alBaldghah (Beirut, 1986, 146o pp.). There are also computerized databases for hadith, both on disk and on-line. For the literature of sirah, or biographies of the Prophet, there is now a multivolume compendium in English: Muhammad: Encyclopaedia of Seerah, edited by Afzalur Rahman (London, 1981-).
The great traditional codifications of the Islamic law, the shari `ah, based on Qur’an and sunnah, are in a sense themselves reference works, but modern Muslims and others needing practical guidance on Islamic legal matters often require easier access. In Arabic there is the great Egyptian encyclopedia of jurisprudence, Mawsu’at (Jamal `Abd al-Nasir) ft al filth al-Islami (Cairo, 1966-), which is alphabetically arranged. In English there are smaller handbooks of personal and family law: David Pearl’s A Textbook on Muslim Personal Law (2d ed., London, 1987) and Keith Hodkinson’s Muslim Family Law: A Sourcebook (London, 1984), as well as a compendium of specifically Qur’anic laws-Muhammad Valibhai Merchant’s A Book of Quranic Laws: An Exhaustive Treatise with Full Quranic Texts (Delhi, 1981). A useful reference guide to the sources of ShN law is Hossein Modarressi Tabataba’i’s An Introduction to Shi i Law: A Bibliographical Study (London, 1984).
Biographical Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Historical Tables. The systematic compilation of biographical dictionaries for reference is a long-established practice among Muslims, and the tradition has continued into modern times. Good examples are Khayr al-Din alZirikli’s Al-a’lam (3d ed., Beirut, c. 1970, 11 vols. in 13) and Zaki Muhammad Mujahid’s Al-a`lam alsharqiyah ft al-mi’ah al-rabi’ah `asharah al-hijriyah (Cairo, 1949-1963 4 vols.). In English there is Yaacov Shimoni’s Biographical Dictionary of the Middle East (Jerusalem and New York, 1991), which contains about five hundred biographies of present and recent personalities, mostly rulers and politicians. These are also covered in Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Bernard Reich (New York, 1990). For Iran there is a major biographical dictionary covering the last three centuries, Mahdi Bamdad’s Sharh-i hdl-i rijal-i Iran dar Barn-i 12 va 13 va 14-i hijri (2d ed., Tehran, 1978-1979 6 vols.).
There also exist a great many biographical dictionaries, classical and modern, of specific categories of Muslims. Special mention must be made of the favorite category, authors and intellectuals, of whom there are some notable modern bio-bibliographical dictionaries, such as Mehmed Tahir Bursah’s (d. 1926) Osmanli muellifleri (Istanbul, 1915-1924, 3 vols.; reprint, Farnborough, 1971, and on microfiche, Chicago, 1973; modern Turkish ed., Istanbul, 19[71?]-1975) for Ottoman Turkish authors, and `Umar Rida Kahhalah’s Mu`jam almu’allifin (Damascus, 1957-196i, 15 vols.) for Arab ones. An index to the Arabic works in this field is provided by Khaldun al-Wahhabi’s Maraji` tardjim aludaba’ al-‘Arab (Baghdad and Najaf, 1956-1962, 4 vols.). Shi`i authors can be found in Ahmad al-Najashi’s Fihrist asmd musannift al-Shi` `ah, (Qom, 1978), and a wider biographical dictionary of Shi`is is the massive A’yan al-Shi `ah, (Beirut, 1951-1960, 7 vols.) by Muhsin `Abd al-Karlm Amin. A related field is the study of Arabic/Muslim names, of which a noteworthy dictionary and encyclopedia is Mawsu’at al-Sultan Qabus li-Asmd’ al-‘Arab/Sultan Qaboos Encyclopedia of Arab names (Muscat and Beirut, 1991, 8 vols.); there is also an international project for a computerized database of Arabic onomastics and prosopography called Onomasticon Arabicum, coordinated at the Institut de Recherches et Histoire des Textes in Paris.
Much biographical information is also to be found in general encyclopedias of Islamic history and civilization, of which a number are now available. The genre originates in the classical Islamic period, but in modern times the initiative was taken by European Orientalists, who in 1908 launched the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden/London, 1908-1938, 5 vols. including Supplement; reprinted, Leiden, 1987; also published in French and German editions). This is a detailed scholarly reference work on all aspects of Islamic religion, history, thought, and civilization, but it inevitably reflects the non-Muslim, European style of scholarship of the period. In the 1950s a new edition was started (first fasc., Leiden, 1954-), on a much larger scale, which is still in progress: this now includes some contributions by Muslim scholars, written from a Muslim standpoint, but the overall editorial policy is still rooted in the Western Orientalist tradition. Nevertheless, several major encyclopedias prepared and published in the Muslim world are translations or adaptations of it: in Arabic, the Dd’irat al-ma’arif al-Islamiyah (Cairo, 1933; reprint, 1969, 16 vols.) and Ahmad `Atiyat Allah’s Al-qamus alIslami (Cairo, 1963-1979, 5 vols.); in Turkish, the Islam ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 1940-1988, 13 vols.); and in Urdu, the Urdu dd’irah-i ma’arif-i Islamiyah (Lahore, 1959-, in progress).
In the late twentieth century new initiatives have been launched in Muslim countries to prepare original largescale encyclopedias by and for Muslims. In Iran an institute was established in 1983 to compile and edit such a work in Persian; ten years later it had a staff of about two hundred and had produced the first five volumes of the Dd’irat al-ma’arif–i buzurg-i Islami/The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (Tehran, 1989-, in progress), which will eventually be completed in about forty volumes. In 1991 the first volume of an Arabic edition appeared (Dd’irat al-ma’arif al-Islamiyah al-kubrd, Tehran 1991-, in progress), and an English version is being prepared at the University of Cambridge. A similar enterprise in Turkey is the Turkiye Diyanet Vakfi Islam ansiklopedisi (not to be confused with the Islam ansiklopedisi mentioned above), which likewise is based in a well-resourced research institute; its first volume was published in 1988, thirty volumes are envisaged, and an English version may eventually appear. These two encyclopedias, unlike the Encyclopaedia of Islam and its derivatives, have been written from the outset from Islamic standpoints (Shi’i and Sunni respectively), but great care has been taken in both cases to ensure that they embody careful research and high scholarly standards.
As well as these large-scale works, there have also been a number of encyclopedias on a smaller scale, usually devoted to one or more aspects of Islamic studies. The Shorter Enyclopaedia of Islam (edited by H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, Leiden, 1953, reprinted 1991) contains articles from the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam on religious and legal subjects; these are likewise the main themes of Cyril Glasse’s The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam (London, 1989), although this does also contain some historical and geographical entries. Even more concise is I. R. Netton’s A Popular Dictionary of Islam (London, 1992), a scholarly quickreference source covering a wide range of Islamic (mostly Arabic) terms and names. For the modern Middle East there are a number of encyclopedias covering recent history, politics, and current affairs, such as Mehdi Heravi’s Concise Encyclopaedia of the Middle East (Washington, 1973) and An A to Z of the Middle East (London, 1990. by Alain Gresh and Dominique Vidal.
Particular Muslim peoples are also covered in some large-scale encyclopedias, notably the Encyclopaedia Iranica (edited by Ehsan Yarshater, London, 1982-, in progress), L’Encyclopedie berbere (Aix-en-Provence, 1984-, in progress), and Turk ansiklopedisi (Ankara, 1946-, in progress). For the Arab world, there is the Concise Encyclopaedia of Arabic Civilization (Amsterdam, 1959-1966, 2 vols.) by Stefan and Nandy Ronart, with the emphasis on history.
Useful for historical reference are tables of Muslim dynasties such as the classic and indispensable work of Eduard de Zambaur, Manuel de ginialogie et de chronologie pour l’histoire de [‘Islam (Hanover, 1927, 2 vols.; reprinted, Osnabriick, 1976; Arabic version, Mu`jam alansab wa-al-usarat al-hdkimah ft al-tarikh al-Islami, Cairo, 1951, 2 vols.); a more handy modern guide is C. E. Bosworth’s The Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Handbook (rev. ed., Edinburgh, 198o). Equivalent dates in the AH and CE calendars are supplied by a number of published tables, of which the most popular and convenient is probably G. S. P. FreemanGrenville’s The Muslim and Christian Calendars (2d ed., London, 1977). Computer programs for calculating dates and prayer times are also available on-line from the American Arab Scientific Society (AMASS) Software Library in Boston, Massachusetts.
Atlases, Gazetteers, Directories, and Surveys. Most atlases of the Muslim world concentrate on historical aspects. Well-known examples are the Historical Atlas of the Muslim Peoples (Amsterdam, 1957) by Roelof Roolvink and others, and W. C. Brice’s An Historical Atlas of Islam (Leiden, 1981); also, in Arabic, Husayn Mu’nis, Atlas tdrikh al-Islam/Atlas of the History of Islam (Cairo, 1987). There are also cultural “atlases”-in fact mainly pictorial essays-covering both history and the modern scene: Francis Robinson’s Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (Oxford, 1982) and Isma’il R. alFaruqi and Lois Lamya’ al-Faruqi’s The Cultural Atlas of Islam (New York, 1986). An atlas of the modern Islamist movement is Atlas mondial de [‘Islam activiste (edited by Xavier Raufer et al., Paris, 1991). But most of those covering the geography and economics of the modern Muslim world are confined to certain regions, particularly the Middle East, for example, The Cambridge Atlas of the Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge, 1987) and Atlas of the Middle East (edited by Moshe Brawer, New York and London, 1988). This is true also of a massive German project, the Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (Tiibingen, 1972-, in progress), which includes not only detailed maps but also major historical, toponymic, and geographical studies.
There are numerous directories and surveys of the modern Muslim world or parts of it. Especially noteworthy is Muslim Peoples: A World Ethnographic Survey (edited by R. V. Weekes, 2d ed., revised and expanded, Westport, 1984, 2 vols.). Academic and other educational institutions, libraries, museums, and so on in each country are listed in the International Directory of Islamic Cultural Institutions/Al-dalil al-duwalf lilmu’assassat al-thaqafiyah al-Islamiyah (revised and enlarged ed. by Acar Tanlak and Ahmed Lajimi, Istanbul, 1989); international organizations can be found in Arab and Islamic International Organization Directory (Munich, 1984). For economic and financial information, useful works include J. R. Presley’s Directory of Islamic Financial Institutions (London, 1988) and Economie du monde arabe et musulman (4th ed., Cachan, 1992), and for the Middle East only, the Middle East Economic Handbook (London, 1986), Major Companies of the Arab World and Iran (London, 1976-, periodic) and the MEED Middle East Financial Directory (annual, London, 1976-1990). There is even an Islamic Transport Directory (Colchester, 1987).
The annual Europa surveys and directories of the Middle East and North Africa (London, 1948-) and the Far East and Australasia (London, 1969-, including Muslim countries of South and Southeast Asia) provide much current information on those regions. There is also a useful Middle East Studies Handbook by Jere L. Bacharach (new ed., Seattle and Cambridge, 1984), and The Middle East: A Political Dictionary by Lawrence Ziring (new ed., Santa Barbara and Oxford, 1992). More specialized, but of great importance for modern Muslims, is Ziauddin Sardar’s Science and Technology in the Middle East: A Guide to Issues, Organizations and Institutions (London, 1982).
Language Dictionaries and Reference Grammars. Arabic lexicography has a venerable history, and the many great classical dictionaries cannot be enumerated here. The one most used by modern Arabs and Muslims is probably Ibn Manzur’s Lisan al-‘Arab (new ed., Beirut, 1968, 65 parts in 15 vols.); an abridged and modernized version commissioned by a number of academies and universities has been published under the title Lisdn al-‘Arab al-muhit (Beirut, 1970, 3 vols.). Another popular modern monoglot dictionary is Al-munjid (25th ed., Beirut, 1975). The classic Arabic-English dictionary is E. W. Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon/Madd alqamus (London, 1863-1893, 8 vols.; reprint, Beirut, 1968, and, in 2 vols., Cambridge, 1984), continued by Worterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache (ArabicGerman-English, Wiesbaden, 1970-, in progress); the standard modern work is Hans Wehr’s A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (edited by J. Milton Cowan, 4th ed., Wiesbaden, 1979). For Persian, the monumental monoglot Lughat’namah by `Al! Akbar Dihkhuda (Tehran, 1946-1981, about 26o parts; reproduced on microfiche, University of Chicago Library) must be mentioned, and there are also a number of bilingual dictionaries, as there are for most other Muslim languages.
Glossaries of Islamic terminology are provided by Syed Ali Ashraf’s A Glossary of Islamic Terms (Cambridge, Islamic Academy, 1985), and on a larger scale, A Glossary of Islamic Terminology by Bassam Sulaiman Abughosh and Waffa Zaki Shaqra (London, 1992). There is also a good English-language dictionary of proverbs-A Dictionary of Arabic and Islamic Proverbs by Paul Lunde and John Wintle (London, 1984).
There are many Arabic reference grammars, both classical and modern. For Anglophone students the best is probably William Wright’s A Grammar of the Arabic Language (3d ed., Cambridge, 1896-1898, 2 vols.; many reprints) for classical Arabic, and Vincente Cantarino’s Syntax of Modern Arabic Prose (Bloomington, 1974, 3 vols.) for the modern language. Other Muslim languages are generally less well served, but for Turkish there is Geoffrey Lewis’s Turkish Grammar (Oxford, 1967, reprint, 1985).
Bibliographies and Guides to the Literature. Islamic studies have been relatively well served by enumerative bibliographies, and only those of the highest importance can be mentioned here. Some bibliographies of the bibliographies are listed in the bibliography below.
A good basic guide to the most important material in most languages is Middle East and Islam: A Bibliographical Introduction (edited by Diana Grimwood-Jones, rev. ed., Zug, 1979; Supplement 1977-1983, edited by Paul Auchterlonie, Zug, 1986) although it is now in need of updating. For the great corpus of classical Arabic writings on all subjects, the fundamental work is still Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (2d ed., Leiden, 1937-1949 5 vols. incl. Supplement; Arabic version, Tarikh al-adab al-`Arabi, Cairo, 1974-1977 6 vols.). A more recent and more comprehensive account of much of the earlier literature is Fuad Sezgin’s Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 19671984, 9 vols.; Arabic version, Tarikh al-turath al-`Arabi, Cairo, 1977-, and Riyadh, 1983-). At a much more elementary level, the Anglophone reader in need of a judicious classified selection of major works can consult N. A. Baloch’s Great Books of Islamic Civilization (Islamabad, 1989). Shl’! literature is minutely enumerated in Arabic in the massive Al-dhari-`ah ild tasanif al-Shi `ah, by Muhammad Muhsin al-Tihrani (Najaf and Tehran, 1936-1978, 25 vols.). Printed editions of Arabic literature with biographies of the authors, up to the early twentieth century, are listed in Yusuf Aliyan Sarkis’s Mu’jam al-matbu’at al-`Arabiyah wa-al-mu’arrabah (Cairo, 1928-1931, 2 vols.; reprinted, Baghdad, 1965). Much modern Arabic literature can be traced in Yusuf As’ad Daghir’s Masadir al-dirdsat al-adabiyah (Sidon/ Beirut, 1950-1983, 4 vols. in 5.); English translations are enumerated in Margaret Anderson’s Arabic Materials in English Translation: A Bibliography of Works from the Pre-Islamic Period to 1977 (Boston, 198o). Arabic periodical articles are listed retrospectively in `Abd alJabbar `Abd al-Rahman’s Index Arabicus 1876-1984/ Kashshaf al-dawriyat al-`Arabiyah (Baghdad, 1989, 4 vols.) and currently in Al-kahshaf al-Islami (Nicosia, 1989, quarterly).
Classical Persian literature is recorded in C. A. Storey’s Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey (London, 1927-, in progress); a more general basic retrospective bibliography of Iranian studies is the Bibliographical Guide to Iran: The Middle East Library Committee Guide (edited by L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Brighton, 1983). Turkish literature is less well served, but there is a comprehensive annual current bibliography of Turkish studies, Turkologischer Anzeiger/Turkology Annual (Vienna, 1984-, as separate publication; previously in Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 6775 1975-1983) Published Urdu literature is covered in Qamus al-kutub-i Urdu (Karachi, 1961-1975, 3 vols.).
For European-language studies of Islamic subjects there are a number of major bibliographies. The Index Islamicus (Cambridge and London, 1958-) has provided a register of articles published since 1906 and monographs since 1976; it continues as a current bibliography of books, articles, and reviews, and is published quarterly and annually in London. Another Index Islamicus volume (by W. H. Behn, Millersville, 1989) lists articles from 1665 to 1905. A useful bibliography of significant English-language publications on Islam as a religion and a civilization is David Ede’s Guide to Islam (Boston, 1983), and a current register of such material is the Index of Islamic Literature (Leicester, 1986-, quarterly). The very important contributions of German-language scholarship are recorded in the Bibliographie der deutschsprachigen Arabistik and Islamkunde von den Anfdngen bis 1986 by Fuat Sezgin and others (Frankfurt a.M., 19901993 , 18 vols. ).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
`Abd al-Rahman, `Abd al-Jabbar. Dald al-mardji` al-`Arabiyah wa-almu’arrabah: Fihrist bibliyughraft (Guide to Arabic Reference Books: An Annotated Bibliography). Basra, 1970. Arranged thematically. Amin, `Abd al-Karim, and Ibrahim Zahidah. Dahl al-mardji` al`Arabiyah. Baghdad, 1970. Another guide to Arabic reference works, thematically arranged.
Anees, Munawar Ahmad, and Alia N. Athar. Guide to Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Languages. London, 1986. Takes a rather negative view of the contributions of Orientalists.
Auchterlonie, Paul. Arabic Biographical Dictionaries: A Summary Guide and Bibliography. Durham, 1987. Includes a section on modern works.
Auchterlonie, Paul, ed. Introductory Guide to Middle Eastern and Islamic Bibliography. Oxford, 1990. Very useful annotated bibliography of the main bibliographies and reference works.
Besterman, Theodore. World Bibliography of African Bibliographies. Revised and updated by J. D. Pearson. Oxford and Totowa, N.J., 1975. Includes bibliographies covering North Africa and other Muslim areas.
Besterman, Theodore. World Bibliography of Oriental Bibliographies. Revised and updated by J. D. Pearson. Oxford and Totowa, N.J., 1975
Geddes, Charles L. Guide to Reference Books for Islamic Studies. Denver, 1985. The most comprehensive bibliography available, with extensive annotations and index, but marred by numerous inaccuracies and misreadings.
Ghali, Wajdi Rizq. AI-mu`jamat al-`Arabiyah: Bibliyujrafiyah shamilah mashrahah (Arabic Dictionaries: An Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography). Cairo, 1971. Supplement in Melanges de l’Institut Dominicain d’Etudes Orientales 12 (1974): 243-287. Thorough listing of 707 Arabic dictionaries: monoglot, diglot, and polyglot. Grimwood-Jones, Diana, et al., eds. Arab Islamic Bibliography: The Middle East Library Committee Guide. Hassocks, 1977. Important comprehensive listing of reference materials, but in need of updating. Includes sections on bibliographies; encyclopaedias and reference works; Arabic grammars; genealogy, biographical dictionaries, and who’s whos; the press and periodicals; maps and atlases; Arabic geographical names; Festschrifts and commemorative volumes; scientific expeditions; Orientalism and Orientalists; institutions; Arabic manuscripts; Arabic papyri; archives; Arabic epigraphy; Muslim numismatics; Arabic printing and book production; libraries; booksellers.
Haywood, John A. Arabic Lexicography: Its History, and Its Place in the General History of Lexicography. 2d ed. Leiden, 1965. Informative and readable account.
Hazai, Gyorgy, and Barbara Kellner-Heinkele. Bibliographisches Handbuch der Turkologie: Eine Bibliographie der Bibliographien vom 18. Jahrhundert bis 1979. Vol. 1. Budapest and Wiesbaden, 1986. Lacks index, which may eventually appear in a later volume. Covers all Turkish- and Turkic-speaking areas.
Meiseles, Gustav. Reference Literature to Arabic Studies: A Bibliographic Guide. Tel Aviv, 1978. Unannotated.
Pearson, James D. Oriental and Asian Bibliography: An Introduction with Some Reference to Africa. London, 1966. Valuable description of the main sources, but now rather dated.
Selim, George D. Arabic-English and English-Arabic Dictionaries in the Library of Congress. Washington, D.C., 1992.
Siddiqi, Muhammad Z. Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special Features. Edited and revised by Abdal Hakim Murad. Cambridge, 1993. Detailed account of the development of the main bodies of texts and reference works relating to them.
Siddiqui, Abdur Rashid. Islamic Studies: A Select Guide to Bibliographic and Reference Material. Leicester, 1979. Brief, annotated list of English-language material, for the benefit of Muslim readers. Strangelove, Michael. The Electronic Mystic’s Guide to the Internet: A Complete Bibliography of Networked Electronic Documents, Online Conferences, Serials, Software, and Archives Relevant to Religious Studies. On-line database, University of Ottawa, 1992. Contains details of various Islamic and Arabic reference materials available online (see volume i, chapter 12: “Islamic Studies”). A printed version of this chapter may be found in MELCOM International Newsletter 2 (1993) 7-16.
Tasbihi, Ghulam-Husayn. A Comprehensive Survey of Persian Bibliographies in the World/Nigarishi-i jami` bar jahan kitab-shinasi-ha-yi Iran. Tabriz, 1986.
Urdu men havale ki kitaben. Karachi, 1965. Classified bibliography of Urdu reference books.
Vesel, Ziva. Les encyclopedies persanes: Essai de typologie et de classification des sciences. Paris, 1986. Includes an introduction in Persian.

REFERENCE BOOKS – Hybrid Learning

REFERENCE BOOKS