The holdings of the Islamic Studies Library, a branch of the

McGill University Library McGill University Library is the library system of McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. It comprises 13 branch libraries, located on the downtown Montreal and Macdonald campuses, holding over 11.78 million items. It is the fourth-lar ...

, stand together with those of the

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of the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

as the premier library resources in

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for research on the Islamic world and among the most important collections in

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History

The Islamic Studies library was founded, along with the

McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies The McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies and the Islamic Studies Library were established in 1952 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and since 1983 both have been housed in Morrice Hall on McGill's campus in downtown Montreal, Quebec. McGill's ins ...

, in 1952. It has grown from a modest departmental library to a respectable library of approximately 150,000 volumes covering the whole of Islamic civilization. The library is located in Morrice Hall, designed by John J. Browne, and built in 1882.

Collection

The library collections comprise material in print, manuscript, and audiovisual formats. The manuscript collection consists of approximately 640 volumes of literature in Arabic, Persian, Turkish (including Ottoman Turkish) and Urdu. These holdings are located in
Rare Books and Special Collections
The audiovisual resources consist of microfilms of rare books, and manuscripts (535 reels). Among the printed books there is a collection of approximately 3000 rare items, including a collection of 700 volumes of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Turkish books printed by lithography. In general terms, the collection aspires to cover the entire range of Islamic civilization (Islamicate). Geographically this is meant to include South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, etc.), Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan), the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and the Yemen), and North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the Sudan).

References

External links

Islamic Studies Library
{{Authority control McGill University Academic libraries in Canada Libraries in Montreal Islamic libraries 1952 establishments in Quebec Libraries established in 1952