Harvard University's Middle East collections specializes in materials in Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Turkish, Urdu, and Uzbek from mainly the Middle East, Near East, North Africa, and diaspora communities.  The Middle East collections is drawn from Widener Library's Humanities and Social Science Collection Development (HSSCD.)  The entirety of the collection's holdings can be accessed through Harvard Library's HOLLIS Catalog.

• HOLLIS Catalog:  Contains the collection's holding across all Harvard libraries, archives, and special collections on books, films, government documents, journal articles, images, manuscripts, maps, music, newspapers, photographs, posters, etc.

 Harvard Libraries

Special Collections within Harvard Libraries

Fine Arts Library: Aga Khan Collection in Art and Architecture

• Special Collections:  Aga Khan Program for Islamic Art and Architecture

• Special Collections: Islamic Photographs

Houghton Library: Islamic Manuscripts

• Finding Islamic Manuscripts at Harvard. MS Arab (Arabic Language)

Lamont Library: Government Documents

• Special Collections:  Palestine in Government Documents

Loeb Music Library: Archive of World Music (AWM) 

• Special Collections:  Arab 78 Collection

Widener Library: Humanities and Social Sciences Collection Development (HSSCD)  

• Special Collections:  Arab Posters

• Special Collections:  Byzantine Fieldwork Photography

• Special Collections:  Charlie Hebdo Archive

• Special Collections:  Coptica at Harvard

• Special Collections:  Iranian Oral History Project

• Special Collections:  Islamic Heritage

• Special Collections:  Kurdish People and Lands (coming soon) 

• Special Collections:  Tehran Propaganda Murals

• Special Collections:  Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran

Middle East

HOLLIS: Early Arabic Printed Books: Literature, Grammar, Language, Catalogues and Periodicals

HOLLIS:  Early Arabic Printed Books: Sciences, History and Geography

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East: By housing ancient Near Eastern exhibitions, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East explores the rich history of cultures connected by the family of Semitic languages. The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East is home to Harvard University's collections of Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. These artifacts comprise over 40,000 items, including pottery, cylinder seals, sculpture, coins and cuneiform tablets. Many are from museum-sponsored excavations in Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Cyprus, and Tunisia. The Museum remains dedicated to the use of these collections for the teaching, research, and publication of Near Eastern archaeology, history, and culture.

Harvard University Archives: the HU Archives collects records (paper, visual and electronic), papers and manuscripts, publications, and other historical materials documenting the intellectual, cultural, administrative and social life of Harvard University from the 17th century to the present. The Archives serves as the principal repository for the institutional records of the University and faculty archives, including papers and manuscripts. The Archives seeks to document the faculty, students and academic programs at the University, as well as Harvard’s central administration, its libraries, museums, research centers and affiliated organizations. For example, the Archives holds the Papers of George A.R. Reisner, 1932-1948 (inclusive); 21 cubic feet (1 document box); Reisner graduated from Harvard in 1889 and taught Semitic languages, Semitic archaeology and Egyptology at Harvard.

Iranian Oral History Project: this is a unique resource for the study of modern Iranian history. The collection consists of the personal accounts of 134 individuals who played major roles in or were eyewitnesses to important political events in Iran from the 1920s to the 1980s. Of these, 118 narratives have been digitized and are available to researchers through this database. The collection provides scholars and practitioners the opportunity to listen to and read the personal accounts of many of Iran's former political leaders as they recall the times and events that shaped their lives and the life of their country.

Islamic Heritage Project: this is a multi-disciplinary collection of high-quality digital reproductions of more than 270 Islamic manuscripts, more than 300 published texts, and 58 maps from Harvard's renowned library and museum collections. Subjects represented include religious texts and commentaries; Sufism; history, geography, law, and the sciences (astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine); poetry and literature; rhetoric, logic, and philosophy; calligraphy, dictionaries and grammar, as well as biographies and autobiographical works.

Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran: this collection explores the lives of women during the Qajar era (1796-1925) through a wide array of materials from private family holdings and participating institutions. It provides bilingual access to thousands of personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, publications, everyday objects, works of art and audio materials, making it a unique online resource for social and cultural histories of the Qajar world