Islam in South & Southeast Asia: Harvard Library Resources

• Encyclopaedia of Islam Three Online — comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world.
• New Cambridge History of Islam. Volume 3, The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries — discusses Islam in India, and by oceanic routes to coastal South Asia and South-East Asia.
• New Cambridge History of Islam. Volume 4, Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century — discusses South and Southeast Asia, highlighting regional dynamics within the broader Islamic world.
• New Cambridge History of Islam. Volume 6, Muslims and Modernity, Culture and Society Since 1800 — examines modern Muslim societies in South and South-East Asia.
• Oxford Bibliographies: Islamic Studies  — a curated, authoritative guide to scholarly resources and research; use the Advanced Search feature to search by keywords.

Pro Tip:

• After running a search in HOLLIS, filter to "Reference Entries" (under the Resource Type filter to the right of your results).
  • Example: results for reference entries on trade AND Mecca AND "South Asia"

HOLLIS is the main search tool for Harvard Library collections.

• Catalog: HOLLIS — books, journals, maps, audiovisual, many e-resources.
• Archives: HOLLIS for Archival Discovery — finding aids for manuscripts, personal papers, field notes. (Or try Collections Explorer [Beta], which uses AI to search the same collections.)
• Images: HOLLIS Images — digitized manuscripts, photographs, maps, objects.

Pro Tips:

• When searching, try multiple scripts, spellings, and transliterations.
• After running a search in HOLLIS, filter to a library or repository of your choice (under the Location filter to the right of your results).
  • Example: results for Houghton Library holdings on Islam* AND (divination OR occult*), including the title, Compendium of Astrology, Numerology and Fortune-Telling, which originated in India.

• Islamic Heritage Project (IHP) — digitized Islamic manuscripts & early printed works (Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Malay/Jawi).
• Houghton Library — occult sciences, talismans, astrology; rare South & Southeast Asian materials.
• Stuart Cary Welch Islamic & South Asian Photograph Collection (Fine Arts) — photos of manuscript illumination, amulets, mosque architecture; a portion depicts the intersection: South Asian Islamic art and architecture.
• Archive of World Music Collection (Loeb Music) — field recordings and performance archives of Islamic devotional, folk, and classical music from South and Southeast Asia.
• Widener: South & Southeast Asia Collections — original languages, periodicals, government docs.

Pro Tip:

• Many materials are offsite or require reading room access (Houghton / Special Collections).
  Use HOLLIS Special Request for manuscripts and rare items, and plan ahead.

• Tozzer Library (Anthropology) — field notes & ethnography (healing, spirit possession, ritual).
• Harvard Map Collection — Indian Ocean routes; ports of the Malay world; South Asia; and the Hijaz, a major center of trade, pilgrimage, and scholarship, linking Arabia with South Asia.
• Harvard‑Yenching Library — Southeast Asian Islam (including Vietnam), colonial archives, missionary and original language sources.
• Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries — botanical exchanges tied to trade, medicine, and pilgrimage.
• Om-gnosis: The Occult South Asia Podcast — the first podcast dedicated to the study of Occult South Asia, hosted by the Center for the Study of World Religions at the Harvard Divinity School; includes Islamic esotericism.

• South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) — digitized colonial/original language sources.
• Southeast Asia Digital Library (SEADL) — digitized Southeast Asian studies resources; manuscripts, videos, posters.
• Digital South Asia Library (DSAL) — maps, gazetteers, statistics, early journals.
• Bibliography of Asian Studies — index of secondary scholarship.
• Index Islamicus — comprehensive bibliography of global Islamic studies publications.
• JSTOR or Project MUSE — for full-text journal articles, including regional studies and interdisciplinary work on Islam, politics, and culture.
• ARTSTOR Collections on JSTOR — to access visual materials such as mosque architecture, calligraphy, and manuscript illumination from South and Southeast Asia.
• Religion Databases Cross-Search — Choose the “Religion Databases Cross-Search” search on the HDS homepage for simultaneous access to many specialized resources.