A DATABASE is an inventory of materials (electronic journals, ebooks, articles) that allow for searches for a designated topic across one interface with links to the full-text of articles or chapters.
An INDEX is a collection of citations, often including information about articles such as abstracts. Full-text access is not usually available.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY is a curate lists of key texts on a specific topic or sub-discipline which includes, for the most part, citation information and may include limited annotated information or abstract about the text as well.
MES Top Rated Databases
Index Islamicus (EBSCO version): the international classified bibliography of publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world from 1906 until the present day. Material cited in the Index Islamicus includes work written about the Middle East, as well as the other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere. It covers all the main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, as well as Muslims living elsewhere, and their history, beliefs, societies, cultures, languages and literatures
Index Islamicus (ProQuest version): a bibliography of publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, providing access to over 2,000 journals and series. It also covers conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works, and book reviews
JSTOR Middle East Studies: the searchable text of 61 full-text journals on the subject of Middle Eastern studies. Chronological coverage from early 20th century to the present.
Recently Acquire Databases (last updated August 2022)
Dar al-Mandumah: provides access to a series of databases with full-text content of Arabic scientific conferences, dissertations and academic journals from 1921 to present day. Most of the content available is in the Arts and Humanities covering topics such as religion, history, literature, and more. EduSearch: contains Arabic journals and conference research papers and seminars for education and social research with coverage period starting in 1928. HumanIndex: contains academic journals, conference and seminars specialized in Humanities. Islamic Info: is a database specialized in Islamic and Legal Studies. AraBase: an Arabic language database that focuses on Arabic language sciences and literature. EcoLink: a database specialized in Economic and Management Studies. Mandumah Dissertations: a database of theses and dissertations from Arab researchers and students in various academic disciplines.
The Journal of Digital Islamicate Research (JDIR) is a peer-reviewed journal covering the field of Middle Eastern and Islamicate Digital Humanities (DH). It aspires to adjust the computational, visualization and big data methods for the exploration of contemporary and historical cultures (also known as Cultural Analytics, CA) to the emerging field of Middle Eastern and Islamic Digital Humanities, and apply these methods to it. This would enhance the distant and close readings of massive amounts of cultural data (written material, as well as visuals and audio) in Middle Eastern languages in order to derive culturally-relevant insights from it. The Journal also aims to promote the study of Arabic-language and other Arabic-script DH work (e.g., Persian, Ottoman, Urdu), and non-Muslim DH in Islamicate lands (e.g. the Geniza researchers that are moving into DH), in addition to Islamicate materials that are digital-born or digitally-reformatted. This will bring forth innovative tools and develop new technical research methods for a refreshing analysis of Middle Eastern and Islamic languages, literatures, cultures, and history in a computer-supported way. The Journal is a leading initiative in the Digital Humanities of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies that provides an online platform for the cross fertilization of different academic traditions, fields, and disciplines.
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MES Databases in Alphabetical Order
ABSEES (American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies): includes material on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire
Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR) Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies: a list of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies collected since AMIR began on December 5, 2010.
Arab Council for Social Science Dataverse: an initiative of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences, in collaboration with the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The ACSS Dataverse contains social science datasets produced in Arab countries, with the goal of making data available for research in the region and preserving data for future generations of researchers. There is no charge for access to datasets in the ACSS Dataverse, although users are requested to register in order to download data. The ACSS Dataverse encourages social scientists who study the Arab region to participate in this initiative by depositing data.
AskZad: an Arabic digital library offering a referential, cultural, and academic database
ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials: indexes journal articles, essays, and book reviews in the field of religion. Citations cover all religions and all theological points of view. There are links from cited articles in more than 50 journals to page images of the articles themselves. Strong coverage from 1949-present, with some retrospective indexing back to 1881
Chronology of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals in Arabic (1800-1900): this site provides a chronology of nineteenth-century periodicals in Arabic. It is meant to include all periodicals published in Arabic or in Arabic and in another language or in Arabic written in a different script during the period from 1800 to 1900, the chronology is incomplete. Numerous problems arise in dating and locating individual publications as well as identifying their owners, editors, or publishers. A common problem is that journals with different editors used the same title or the same editors published periodicals under different titles. Thus, the chronology is published as a working draft with the purpose of making this information available to the scholarly community [paraphrased from the site’s Introductory Notes]
Directory of Free Arabic Journals: app. 250 open access journals addressing many subjects from nearly 175 publishers in 17 Arabic-speaking countries
Ethnic NewsWatch: an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish), and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press
FBIS Daily Reports (Foreign Broadcast Information Service daily reports) 1941 - 1996 consists of Daily Reports published from September 4, 1941 through 1996. Created by Presidential directive during World War II and at first placed under the Federal Communications Commission in 1941, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service [it has had several different names during its long history], was later transferred to the War Department, and then to the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, where it resided until 1996. The original mission of FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. These translations, or transcriptions in the case of English language materials, make up the Daily Reports
IBR (Internationale Bibliographie der Rezension): this international bibliography of book reviews of scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences, published since 1971, provides an interdisciplinary, international bibliography of reviews. The database indexes thousands of scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences, primarily from Europe and North America.
IBZ (Internationale Bibliographie der geistes-und sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenlite): an international, interdisciplinary reference work indexing academic periodical literature in the humanities, social sciences and related fields for over a hundred years. Indexes publications from 40 countries in more than 40 languages, and contains more than 4.1 million journal articles from 11,500 journals. The database is updated weekly
International Medieval Bibliography: a comprehensive, current bibliography of journal articles, essay collections and conference proceedings in this interdisciplinary field. Disciplines covered include Classics, English Language and Literature, History and Archeology, Theology and Philosophy, Medieval European Languages and Literatures, Arabic and Islamic Studies, History of Education, Art History, Music, Theatre and Performance Arts, Rhetoric and Communication Studies. Dates covered range from 400 to 1500 A.D., and geographic coverage includes Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The database allows users also to search the Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale, an index of over 40,000 books and 64,000 book reviews on medieval topics since 1957.
Chicago Online Bibliography of Mamluk Studies: this is an on-going project of the Middle East Documentation Center at the University of Chicago, the aim of which is to compile comprehensive bibliographies of all primary sources relating to the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria, as well as all research and discussion--scholarly and popular--germane to the subject. The project takes the form of two bibliographies: the primary and the secondary.
The Middle East, abstracts and index: (print) first published in 1978 this print reference resource covers traditional scholarly literature relevant to interdisciplinary study of this region, along with the complete text of an extensive collection of primary source documents
Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies: an index to research, policy, and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa, with citations to scholarly journals and other periodicals, books, book reviews, book chapters, theses & dissertations,: bulletins, internet documents and grey literature, with about 12,000 citations added each year
Mideast Wire.com: English summaries, with links to original text as available, of news from 22 Arab countries, Iran, and the Arab media Diaspora covering from 2005 to the present
Multidata Online: provides full text from and bibliographic citations to selected newspapers and periodicals from the Arab world in Arabic, English, and French. The file consists of five databases: 1."General News" with full text covering 52 dailies and weeklies since 1994; 2. "Specialized Periodicals" with bibliographic citations from more than 225 specialized Arabic periodicals since 1920; 3. "Reviews" with full text book reviews from more than 250 newspapers and magazines in the Arab world from 1998; 4. "Theses" with a subject index to theses submitted to 21 Lebanese institutions of higher learning; and, 5. "Index Arabicus" documenting the contents of 42 Arabic periodicals published between 1870 and 1969. The database has both Arabic and English interfaces.
Naxos Music Library World: World music from the catalogues of Smithsonian Folkways, ARC Music, Nonesuch, and other labels.
Online Bibliography of Ottoman-Turkish Literature: a free database of references to theses, books, articles, papers and projects relating to research into Ottoman-Turkish culture
Shamaa: an online database that documents educational research carried out in Arab countries in all fields of education, in the three languages, Arabic, French and English, providing free access to researchers and those interested in educational research.
Smithsonian Global Sound: Includes recordings from Smithsonian Folkways, the International Library of African Music, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology.
Women's Studies International: citations and abstracts in this file are drawn from a variety of essential women's studies databases ranging from classic works & core studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research. Databases include Women Studies Abstracts, Women's Studies Database, Women's Studies Bibliography Database, MEDLINE Subset on Women, Women of Color and Southern Women: A Bibliography of Social Science Research, and Women's Health and Development: An Annotated Bibliography.