Research on Arab-Related Topics
By: Nouha Elyazidi / Arab America Contributing Writer
The Arab world is vast in its history, culture, and politics. There is so much to discover and extensive research that can be done on the Arab world, it can be difficult to locate the exact tools to conduct your research whether you are conducting a research paper for a class in school, or for personal educational purposes, this list of research databases is specifically catered to research pertaining to the Arab World or Islam.
Al Manhal
Al Manhal has a large collection of ebooks, online articles, thesis, and journals. Al Manhal is the leading provider of publications from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. They have credible resources that will be able to help you when it comes to any research you are interested in conducting regarding the Arab World: https://www.almanhal.com/
Hamad Bin Khalifta University Press Journals
If you are interested in credible scholarly sources, QScience has a plethora of articles from a range of topics that can be used in your research. This website provides many articles translated from Arabic to English and vice versa which is very beneficial for studying the Arab world: https://www.qscience.com/
Middle East Institute
Based in Washington D.C., the Middle East Institute is home to the Oman Library, which holds over 20,000 books and periodicals relating to the Middle East covering a plethora of topics. This library has an online catalog/digital library with a large selection of books. These digital books are great resources that will be a valuable asset to any research you are conducting. https://catalog.mei.edu/
Fordham University: Internet Islamic History Sourcebook
For research relating to Islam, I would suggest the Fordham University database. This university database is publicly accessible and provides resources relating to Islam from a historical context, a theological context, and even a geographical context: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/islam/islamsbook.asp
Qatar Digital Library
For those interested in primary source documents, the Qatar Digital Library will be a valuable resource with over 2,00,000 items in its archive. Here you can find war diaries, original maps, and uploads of many more original documents with a description, explanations, and summaries: https://www.qdl.qa/en/anglo-persian-relations-british-military-mission-persia-1810-1815
Congressional Research Service Reports on the Middle East and the Arab World
If you are interested in conducting research regarding United States relations with the Middle East or are interested in records regarding the United States and Arab world, the Congressional Research Service Reports has decades of reports relating to US policy/relations in Iraq, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Cyprus, Qatar, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon Saudi Arabia, and more. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/
All of these sources will hopefully help you in your scholarly efforts. Conducting research, even small scale, on the Arab world is very beneficial and so interesting. All of these research databases provide information that contributes to great knowledge resources.
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