A digital toolbox for Iranian Studies and beyond

It motivates me time and again how many digital tools, collections, research projects, inspiring blogs and podcasts about Iranian Studies there are now. The scattered links that I have been accumulating, will be bundled here in this research compendium. The list will be updated regularly, suggestions are always welcome! To make a suggestion or report a mistake: Contact me via email or twitter.

Substiantial contributions were gathered from these fantastic resources: HAZİNE, Amanda Hannoosh Steinberg, Shervin Farridnejad, Evyn Kropf, Translatio Bonn, Islamicate Digital Humanities Network

1. Literature

Search engines

• BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, lists over 150 million documents, of which 60% are OpenAccess)
• CrossAsia (Search in over 100 millions of bibliographical data in Asian Studies and beyond)
• Europeana (Searches thousands of european archives, libraries und museums, contains over 50 million digitized books, works of art and music)
• Google Scholar
• Internet Archive Scholar (academic search engine by the Internet Archive)
• PropylaeumSearch (mainly classical studies and historiography)

Catalogues

• بانک نشریات ایران (The National Library of Iran’s periodical database, contains over 125,000 records)
• Deutsche Staatsbibliothek (German National Library)
• EVIFA: Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Ethnologie (Ethnology)
• Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund Deutschland (German-wide joint library network)
• Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog (Virtual Catalogue of Karlsruhe)
• Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek (Catalogue of the German national library, contains bibliographical data on basically all books published in Germany)
• Ketābnāk (Persian book research, only partly OpenAccess)
• Kubikat (catalogue for literature on Art History)
• Library catalogues via the Orient-Institute Istanbul
• Library of Congress
• National library and archive of Iran
• Austrian joint library network
• شبکه کتابخانه‌های کشور (Search Iran’s library network via the National Library of Iran, which offers records on more than 48 million volumes and over 2.2 million titles)
• Special Collections Catalogue of Leiden University
• Swiss national library
• The National Archives of the UK (also includes the correspondences of the Arab Bureau from 1911-1920 and other relevant collections)
• The National Archives of the USA (for example the collections on the history of the Middle East after 1945)
• The Research Archives of the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago)
• Venetian state archive (has documents on relations between Venetia and Iran)
• Virtueller Katalog – Sondersammelgebiet Vorderer Orient & Nord-Afrika (Special collection on MENA and North-Africa in the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue)
• WEBIS (Overview of special collections in German libraries)
• WorldCat (largest bibliographical database, enables searching in libraries worldwide)
• Zeitschriftendatenbank der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Database of periodicals at the State Library in Berlin)

Databases & bibliographies

Database search (Project by Univ. of Augsburg and Regensburg)
CrossAsia (Database and full text portal specialized in Asian Studies, after free signup it allows the use of otherwise licensed databases)
General overview of academic databases (Project by University of Heidelberg)
ZDB – Zeitschriftendatenbank (extensive database of periodicals from 1500 until now)

• Abstracta Iranica – Čekīde-hāye īrānšenāsī (consecutive critical bibliography of international Iranian Studies research, published by the IFRI-Institute)
• Bibliographia Iranica (highly recommendable bibliography blog by Arash Zeini, Sajad Amiri, Shervin Farridnejad and Yazdan Safaee)
• Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (published by Brill)
• Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) (database of political history)
• Diversifying Art History: A collective bibliography (extensive bibliography on the decolonization of art history)
• eHRAF World Cultures (ethnographic collections, a project of Yale University)
• EROMM Classic (Records of digitized material and microforms)
• Ḥāfeẓe-ye Mellī-ye Īrānīān (The National Memory project of the National Library of Iran offers searchable digital collections and publication databases)
• Index Islamicus (special bibliography on Islam and muslim life)
• Jara’id – A Chronology of Nineteenth-Century Periodicals in Arabic (1800-1900)
• Kurdish Studies Bibliography (consecutive bibliography on Kurdish Studies by the Kurdish Studies Network)
• MENALIB (A specialized information service concerned with everything scientific on the Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Studies, provides many digitized sources)
• MIDA – Das Moderne Indien in Deutschen Archiven 1706-1989 (Modern India in German archives, 1706-1989)
• MLA International Bibliography
• Online Contents Vorderer Orient (joint German library database narrowed down to the Near East)
• Onomasticon Arabicum (informs on more than 27000 scholars and celebrities from the first Muslim millenary)
• Periodicals Index Online/PIO 1770-1995
• Propylaeum: Fachinformationsdienst Altertumswissenschaften (specialist information service in the field of classical studies and historiography)
• Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts (bibliographical and meta data on manuscripts worldwide)
• Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity (a consecutive bibliography)
• Women also know History (database on female researchers in historiography)
• Women of Islamic Studies (database on female researchers in Islamic Studies)
• ZDB – Zeitschriftendatenbank (extensive database of periodicals from 1500 until now)

Encyclopaedias

• Brill’s New Pauly (english version of the German Der Neue Pauly, an encyclopaedical capturing of Classical/Ancient Studies)
• Encyclopædia Iranica
• Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three
• Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān
• Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures
• Great Islamic Encyclopedia (Persian)
• International Encyclopedia of the First World War (also offers articles on the situation and position of Iran during the First World War)
• Iranshahr: Encyclopædia of the Iranian Architectural History (encyclopaedia on Iranian history of architecture and urban development)
• Parsiwiki (Persian online encyclopaedia)
• The Encyclopedia of Great Tehran (Persian)
• The Encyclopedia of Iran (Persian)
• The Encyclopedia of the Culture of the Iranian People (Persian)

Publication platforms

• Academia (Social academic platform)
• ArtDok (Art History)
• heiDOK (Document server of the University of Heidelberg)
• Humanities Commons (Academic network and publication platform in the Humanities with OpenAccess texts on a big variety of topics)
• Perspectivia (Publication platform of the Max Weber foundation)
• PropylaeumDoc (Classical/Ancient Studies)
• ProQuest (e-books and dissertations)
• ResearchGate (Social academic platform)

Digital archives and full text repositories

• Achaemenid History and Culture (Telegram channel for sources on the Achaemenid period that provides a large amount of valuable both old and new research literature and even PDFs of rare publications)
• Acta Sanctorum Database
• Afghan Serials Collection
• Afghanistan Digital Library
• Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan Government Web Archive (since 2015)
• Academic publications from McGill University Canada
• America’s Historical Newspapers / EAN
• Arabian Gulf Digital Archive
• Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library – AMEEL (offers journals, gazettes, dictionaries, and manuscript catalogues, hosted by the University of Yale)
• Arabic Collecions Online (over 14.000 arabic full texts from the public domain)
• Archivportal-D (Germany-wide archive search for documents and reports)
• Arşîva Kurd (kurdish press and journal archive from 1898 to today)
• British Periodicals Collection I & II
• British Periodicals Collection I & II
• Central and Eastern European Online Library (C.E.E.O.L.)
• DDR-Pressearchiv (press archive of the former GDR)
• Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (contains almost 11 million digitized documents)
• DiFMOE: Digitales Forum Mittel- und Osteuropa (Digital Forum Middle & Eastern Europe: searchable digitized historic press articles, also offers results on Iran coverage)
• Digital Resources at the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University
• Digitalisierte Sammlungen der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (digitized collections at the State Library of Berlin)
• DigiZeitschriften (digital German journal archive)
• East India Company (East-India-Company archive)
• Eighteenth Century Journals II : Newspapers & Periodicals 1699-1812
• Empire Online (colonialism and imperialism)
• Endangered Archives Programme (project at the British Library)
• Ensani (Persian digital portal of the Humanities which offers full texts in various languages on a variety of topics)
• Europeana (search in thousands of European archives, libraries and musea, offers over 50 million digitized books, works of art and music)
• Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan
• Gallica (digital collections of the French National Library)
• Ganjoor (most extensive database of Persian poetry across many ages, provides high resolution folios of digitized manuscripts and audio files)
• Hathi Trust Digital Library
• India, Raj & Empire
• Internet Archive (largest internet archive worldwide)
• Islamic Studies e-Book Collection
• JSTOR
• Kāwe (archive of the Persian journal published between 1916-1922 in Berlin)
• Kurdish Digital Library (digital library of the Kurdish Institute of Paris, one of the largest kurdish libraries with over 10.000 works in 25 languages, contains articles, reviews and a vast press archive)
• Kurdish Library (a project by the Kurdish Institute)
• Kurdish Sources (downloadable manuscripts and full texts, a collection by @kurdishsources)
• Library Genesis (vast shadow library)
• MENAdoc (one of the largest OpenAccess repositories, a usage guide written by Torsten Wollina can be found here at Hazine)
• Miras Maktoob (e-book collection of 189 works on Iranian cultural history since 10th century, originally published by the Written Heritage Research Institute in Tehran, access via university networks or a free account from Nationallizenzen)
• Mystik & Aszese des 16.-19. Jahrhunderts (mysticism & asceticism 16th -19th Centuries)
• Nashriyah: digital Iranian history (digital versions of Iranian newspapers and periodicals, hosted by University of Manchester)
• Nationallizenzen (German National Licences, available through institutions as well as for private use after registration, also enables access to some ProQuest content)
• Near East Collection (digitized newspapers and periodicals)
• NetLibrary/OCLC (e-books from various fields)
• Noor Digital Library (digital Iranian shia library)
• Noormags (vast database on Iranian journals in the humanities and Islamic sciences, maintained by the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences in Iran)
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (autobiographical documents about immigration to the USA)
• Open Research Library (over 20,000 peer-reviewed Open Access books)
• Oxford Journals Digital Archive 1829-1995
• Palestinian Oral History Archive
• Parthian Sources (parthian source texts offered with translation, a project by Prof. Jake Nabel from Pennsylvania State University)
• Periodicals Index Online/PIO 1770-1995
• Persée
• Persian Digital Library (open-access corpus of more than 60,000 Persian poems)
• Persian Online Periodicals (part of the Translatio project at the University of Bonn)
• Qatar Digital Library
• Reiseberichte aus aller Welt (travelogues from all over the world, project at University of Heidelberg)
• Russian Islamic Studies
• Sage Journals Online Deep Backfile 1879-2007
• Sāmāne-ye našrīyāt-e Īrān (A growing online collection of Iranian newspapers and journals from various periods)
• SciHub (shadow library)
• Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection
• Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
• SSG Vorderer Orient Digital (high quality digitalization of primary and secondary sources)
• SSOAR (open access archive on social sciences)
• The Middle East Online / Series 1, Arab-Israeli Relations 1917-1970
• The Middle East Online / Series 2, Iraq 1914-1974
• Translatio (Collections of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish periodicals from 1860-1945, Uni-Bonn)
• Unesco Publications (1995-2016)
• Universal Database of Social Sciences & Humanities (UDB-EDU)
• University of California Press E-Book collection (1982-2004)
• Vejin Books (corpus of over 13,367 Kurdish texts and still growing)
• Walter de Gruyter Online-Zeitschriften Linguistics, Literature and Humanities (online journals from publishing house Walter de Gruyter)
• WayBackMachine (enables searching older versions and deleted content of websites)
• ZEFYS: Zeitungsinformationssystem (overview of digitized press archies at the State Library of Berlin)
• Zeitschriftenbibliothek der Uni Heidelberg (archive of periodicals at the University of Heidelberg)
• Zentrales Verzeichnis digitalisierter Drucke (ZVDD) (German central archive of digitized print material)

Dissertations and theses

• Academic publications of McGill University Canada
• DART-Europe
• Dissertations- und Hochschulschriftensuche in EVIFA (virtual specialized ethnology library of theses)
• DissOnline (dissertation search in the German National Library)
• EBSCOhost (American doctoral dissertation record, over 172,000 theses/dissertations from 1902 to the present)
• EThOS (database of over 500,000 doctoral theses)
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations – OATD (record index of theses from around the world)
• openthesis

Academic reviews

• Clio (reviews of historiographical research)
• h-net (reviews of humanities and social sciences research)
• hSozKult (reviews of historiographical research)
• IASL Online (reviews on German literature and cultural sciences)
• Literaturkritik (general German review platform)
• Orientalistische Literaturzeitung (reviews of Oriental Studies research)
• Oxford Review of Books
• Sehepunkte (German review platform)

2. Primary sources, data, and media

Digitized manuscripts, codicology resources and inscriptions

• 2500 rare texts (collection at the National Library of Israel)
• Alphabetical list of Open Access Islamic Manuscripts Collections
• An Introduction to Islamic Manuscript Culture (University of California)
• Asnad (Project for the conservation of over 1000 documents on the history of Iran from the 9th to 19th century at the University of Bamberg)
• Avestan Digital Archive (Search engine for Avestian manuscripts with the objective of making all manuscripts available and findable worldwide)
• Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University)
• Cairo Genizah (contains a large amount of manuscripts and documents on the history of the MENA region and the extended Mediterranae)
• Caro Minasian Collection of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts
• Centre for the Study of the Book (part of the Bodleian Libraries)
• Chester Beatty’s Digital Collections
• Corpus Avesticum Berolinense (comprehensive project of Iranian Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin to make an edition of all existing Avestian texts)
• DOI – Database for Ottoman Inscriptions („searchable digital database comprising information about, as well as transliterations and pictures of all the Turkish, Arabic and Persian architectural inscriptions created in the Ottoman lands during Ottoman times“)
• Digital Library of the Middle East (allows you to search the collections of various institutions for the preservation of cultural heritage)
• Digital Turfan Archive (project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences)
• DMMapp: Mapping Digitized Manuscripts App (maps digitized medieval maniscripts in maps and statistics)
• Early Arabic Sources for the History of Islam (by Matt Saba, MIT)
• Electronic Library (by the Ministry of Religious Foundations and Religious Affairs of the Sultanate of Oman, contains manuscripts and periodicals from various libraries)
• FacsimileFinder (Medieval Manuscript Facsimiles for Book Collectors & Libraries)
• Fihrist (Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World, by Universities of Oxford and Cambridge)
• فهرستگان نسخ خطی (National Library of Iran manuscript catalogues containing over 1.5 million records gathered from 1,868 institutions/centers, maintained by the National Library of Iran)
• Ganjoor (most extensive database of Persian poetry across many ages, provides high resolution folios of digitized manuscripts and audio files)
• Gazi Husrev-Beg Library in Sarajevo (over 10.000 Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Bosnian manuscripts)
• Handschriftensammlung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Manuscript collection of the State Library of Berlin)
• Historical Paper Collections (resources on paper history, watermarks, etc.)
• IDP: International Dunhuang Project (extensive project to „make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artifacts from Dunhuang and other sites along the Silk Road freely available on the Internet“)
• Iraqi Academic Scientific Journals (full text access)
• Islamic Heritage Project (Harvard Library)
• Islamic Manuscripts (Cambridge Digital Library)
• Islamic Manuscripts Basics (an introduction into codicology of islamic manuscripts by the Schoenberg Institutes for Manuscript Studies)
• Islamic Manuscripts Reference Library (extensive bibliography by Prof. Jan Just Witkam)
• Islamic Manuscripts Studies – digitized collections (immense link collection at the University of Michigan, maintained by Evyn Kropf)
• Islamic Medical Manuscripts (National Library of Medicine)
• Islamic Painted Page: A database of Islamic Arts of the Book (University of Hamburg)
• Islamic manuscripts (collection at the university of Leipzig)
• Islamic Manuscripts Collection at the David Museum Kopenhagen (especially check the calligraphy and miniature section)
• ISMI: Islamic Scientific Manuscripts Initiative
• John Rylands University Library of Manchester (more than 1000 Persian manuscripts, make sure to check out this guide by Hazine)
• KITAB (studies on Arabic writing tradition)
• Koç University Manuscripts Collection
• List of digitized Persian Manuscipts (British Library)
• Malek National Library and Museum of Tehran (contains over 19.000 manuscripts)
• Manuscript Cultures (project at University of Hamburg)
• Manuscripts of the Muslim World (via the Open Library of Pennsylvania University)
• Manuscript collection of the Vatican library
• Middle Eastern Special Collections (Leiden University)
• Mingana-Sammlung (University of Birmingham)
• Mouse&Manuscript (lessons in codicology and palaeographybased on manuscripts from the Middle East, Islamic Africa and beyond, by the University of Leiden)
• Muslim World Manuscripts Collection (Collection of Columbia University hosted by the Internet Archive)
• Oriental Collections (Royal Library of Denmark)
• Oriental manuscripts (University library of Tübingen)
• Parsig Database (A steadily growing database that will contain all Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts and words (40,000 so far), which will be verified and tagged manually, adding transliteration, calligraphy, Persian translation, word bases and grammatical details)
• Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts
• Qatar Digital Library
• Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Library (American University of Cairo)
• Resources for the study of watermarks
• Royal Asiatic Collections (digitized manuscripts and illuminations)
• Royal Asiatic Society Collection (University of Cambridge)
• Saint Petersburg Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
• شبکه مراکز اسناد کشور (The National Library of Iran’s network of documentational centers, with over 1.4 million records on documents)
• Shahnama Project (extensive Šāhnāme documentation project, University of Cambridge)
• The Muslim World Manscript Project (look here for an overview of the source material)
• The National Library of the Republic of Bulgaria (over 3800 Arabic, Persian and Ottoman manuscripts)
• Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting (The Morgan Library & Museum)
• vHMML Collections (allows for searching digitized material and microfilms in various collections, a project of the Hill Museum)
• Wellcome Collection of Arabic Manuscripts (over 500 manuscripts)
• World Digital Library: Keyword Iran (historical maps and manuscripts)

Archaeology, architecture, material culture, art history and photography

• AchemeNet (documentation project of achaemenid artefacts in collections worldwide)
• Aga Khan Documentation Center (various conceptions with regular new additions and projects)
• Akkasah Center for Photography (New York University of Abu Dhabi)
• Ancient India & Iran Trust (University of Cambridge)
• Arab Image Foundation
• AramcoWorld (many activities and materials on Arabic and muslim societies)
• ArchNet (digitized collections in various fields, gets expanded regularly)
• Art Institute Chicago
• Art Sales Catalogues Online (reference works for tracking the sale and auction of works of art)
• ArtHistoricum.net (specialized information service for art, photography and design)
• ArtStor
• Cambridge Digital Library
• Carpet Encyclopedia (Overview of carpets of various provenance)
• Das Bild des Orients (the image of the Orient, a specialized analogue and digital image archive on the MENA region)
• Europeana (search in thousands of European archives, libraries and musea, offers over 50 million digitized books, works of art and music)
• Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art)
• Gazi Husrev-Beg Library in Sarajevo (accommodates among others photography collections)
• Gertrude Bell Archive
• Google Arts & Culture (worldwide art and artifact search)
• Īrān Tambr / Iran Stamp (Digital philatelist archive of Iranian postage stamps)
• Isfahan Urban History Project (Field notebooks, drawings, maps and photos from 1974-1976, hosted by ArchNet)
• The Khalili Research Centre Digital Image Centre (digitization project to make Oxford University’s photographic archives of Middle Eastern art and archaeology available online)
• Koç University Digital Collections
• Library of Congress Collections
• Manar Al-Athar Image Database
• Middle East Photograph Archive (University of Chicago Library)
• Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin
• Newspaper Navigator (project by the Library of Congress which enables searching in over 1.5 Million historical newspaper images)
• Ottoman Turkish Garment Database (overview of Ottoman clothing and garment styles)
• Photo Archive of the American Center of Oriental Research
• Photographic Archive (by the University of Chicago Oriental Institute)
• Phototheca Afghanica (project for the preservation of Afghan photographs)
• Pierre de Gigor Collection of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey (collection at The Getty)
• Print & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress)
• Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Library (project of the American University in Cairo, also provides photo and map material, and more)
• The J. Paul Getty Museum
• The Met Collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• The Middle East in Early Prints and Photographs (part of the New York Public Library Digital Collections)
• The Palestine Poster Project (over 14.000 posters and pamphlets from Palestinian history)
• The Stuart Cary Welch Islamic and South Asian Photograph Collection (Harvard Library)
• TIMEA – Travelers in the Middle East Archive („texts, maps, and images documenting travel to the Middle East between the 19th and early 20th centuries)
• Watercolourworld (digitized watercolor art, from all over the world)
• Web Gallery of Art (well searchable and extensive painting archive)
• Wellcome Library (large number of collections, some of which have been placed under Creative Commons licenses)
• Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran (photography and material culture on the history of women in the Qajar period)
• ZolotarevArchives (Mikhail Zolotarev’s collection of over 30,000 images of early amateur photographers also contains photographs from the Persianate world. Digital resources librarian for Islamic art and architecture Alice West from Harvard University takes care of the collection’s research and exhibitions)

Oral history and language documentation

• DOBES – Gorani (you can jump directly to the corpus here)
• Iranian Oral History Project (Project of Harvard University, „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“)
• RAIOH – Research Association for Iranian Oral History (founded by Hamid Ahmadi, the material comprises 1100 hours of interviews with 115 Iranians from four generations, and covers the period from 1919 until 2010)

Linguistic data and corpora

• Parsig Database (A steadily growing database that will contain all Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts and words (40,000 so far), which will be verified and tagged manually, adding transliteration, calligraphy, Persian translation, word bases and grammatical details)
• Peykaregān (collection of 85 Persian linguistic databases)
• PLDB – Persian Linguistic Database (the PLDB, which aims at providing examples for all types of spoken and written Persian for all periods of its development across many text genres, offers a vast collection of searchable Persian corpora with until now more than 350 million words)

Music and sound documents

• Europeana: Music search (enables searching in thousands of European archives)
• Canary Records – Early Oriental Recordings
• Library of Congress – Audio Recordings
• Music archive at the German National Library
• Oral History Portal at the Columbia University Libraries
• Traditional Crossroads (record label for world music, distributes historical recordings from Iran, Armenia, etc.)

Social science data and statistics

• Iran Data Portal (directed by Mehrzad Boroujerdi, offers social science data, „including socioeconomic data, electoral data, information on political parties, and translations of selected laws and regulations“)
• Inventory of 85 Iranian political parties, organizations and groups in the 20th century, Part I and Part II (by Hamid Ahmadi for RAIOH)
• Journals of the Iranian opposition and non-governmental intellectual circles from 1870s until 2000s (by Hamid Ahmadi for RAIOH)
• Inventory of the collection covering the Iranian socialist and communist parties, organizations, and groups from 1917 until 1990 (by Hamid Ahmadi for RAIOH)

Geography and cartography

If you are looking for historical map material, it is always worth taking a look at these digital archives.

• ALI: Atlas of the Languages of Iran (project for the development of an interactive language atlas, which aims to include demographic data and statistics in its visualization)
• Atlas of Tehran Metropolis (Large variety of maps and statistical data on Tehran and surroundings)
• David Rumsey Map Collection (vast collection of over 105,000 maps)
• Digital Library for International Research (various maps, for example of the Ottoman Empire)
• General Maps of Persia (Brill publishing)
• GeoNames (worldwide location search in over 11 million place names)
• Historical Atlas of Islam
• IranCarto (Cartographic studies on Iran with a large variety of maps)
• Map of old Tehran in comparison with new Tehran (by Ali Tayebi)
• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Asia (University of Texas)
• The Decolonial Atlas
• The Early Islamic Empire at Work: Digital Atlas (cartography project funded by the University of Hamburg to visualize the ideas of the early Islamic world according to authors of their respective era)
• The Gulf/2000 Project (collection of maps and statistics)
• The Maps of Matrakçı Nasuh, Ottoman Polymath (Maps of 16th century Persia)

Numismatics

• ZENO (oriental coins database)
• CoinArchives (database of coins featured in numismatic auctions)

3. Academia

Academic journals

CAIRN (french language journals and e-books)
DOAJ (directory of OpenAccess journals)
MUSE (academic journal collection, many open access)
Open Edition (academic open access journals)
SAGE Journals (overview of all journals at SAGE)

• Abstracta Iranica (critical bibliography)
• Afghanistan (the journal of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies)
• AMIT: Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan
• Anabasis: Studia Classica et Orientalia
• Anatolica
• Ancient Near East Studies
• Ancient West & East
• Bibliotheca Orientalis
• British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
• Bulletin of the Asia Institute
• Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
• Boḫārā (Persian monthly, covers a wide range of literary and cultural studies topics)
• Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life
• Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies
• Dabir Journal
• Der Islam
• Die Welt des Islams
• Die Welt des Orients (WO)
• DIYÂR – Journal for Ottoman Studies, Turkey and Middle East Research
• Eurasian Studies
• East and West (issued by ISMEO, The International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies)
• Fritillaria Kurdica: Bulletin of Kurdish Studies
• Heidelberger Brief – Mitteilungen zur Iranistik (Iranian Studies newsletter, discontinued in 2019)
• Indo-Iranian Journal
• Intellectual History of the Islamicate World
• International Journal of Islamic Architecture
• International Journal of Islam in Asia
• International Journal of Middle East Studies
• International Quarterly for Asian Studies
• Iran and the Caucasus
• IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies
• Iran Nameh
• Iranian Studies
• Iranica Antiqua (studies on pre-islamic Iran)
• Īrānšenāsī
• Islamic Law and Society
• Journal Asiatique
• Journal of Developing Societies
• Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES)
• Journal of Iran National Museum (among its topics are archaeology, museum management, restoration, and related theoretical studies)
• Journal of Islamic Ethics
• Journal of Islamic Manuscripts
• Journal of Islamic Studies
• Journal of Material Cultures of the muslim world
• Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies
• Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies
• Journal of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
• Journal of Palestine Studies
• Journal of Persianate Studies
• Journal of Qur’anic Studies
• Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
• Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS)
• Journal of Transcultural Studies
• Journal of Turkish Studies
• Kurdish Studies
• Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies
• Manuscripta Orientalia: International Journal for Oriental Manuscript Research
• Mardomnāme (persian journal on cultural and social history)
• MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project)
• Middle East – Topics and Arguments
• MIZAN (Journal for the study of Muslim societies and civilizations)
• Moṭāleʿāt-e īrānšenāsī (interdisciplinary Persian language journal on Iranian Studies)
• New Middle Eastern Studies
• Oriens
• Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica
• Oriente Moderno
• Parthica
• Pažūheš-hāye īrānšenāsī (semi-annual publication published by the Faculty of Humanities and Literature of Tehran University)
• Persica (annual journal published by the Dutch-Iranian Society)
• Perso-Indica: An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions
• ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies
• Review of Middle East Studies / Middle East Studies Association Bulletin
• Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
• Shii Studies Review
• Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development
• Sociology of Islam
• Spektrum Iran: Zeitschrift für Islamisch-Iranische Kultur
• Studia Iranica
• Studia Iranica Upsaliensia
• Studia Islamica
• The Journal of Mesopotamian Studies
• The Journal of Middle East Medievalists – Al-‘Usur al-Wusta
• The Middle East Journal
• The Muslim World
• Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
• Written monuments of the orient
• Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG)
• Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik, Leipzig 1922-1936
• Zeitschrift für islamische Studien
• Zeitschrift für Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft
• Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften
• Zeitschrift für Recht und Islam

Universitary institutes

Iran

• Dehḫodā Lexicon Institute & International Center for Persian Studies (Tehran University)
• All other Iranian institutes soon to be added!

Germany, Austria, Switzerland

• Universität Hamburg: Asien-Afrika-Institut
• Freie Universität Berlin: Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies
• Universität München: Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten
• Freie Universität Berlin: Institut für Iranistik
• Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Institut für Iranistik
• Universität Marburg: Iranistik am Centrum für Nah- und Mittelost-Studien
• Universität Bamberg: Iranistik-Institut
• Universität zu Köln: Orientalisches Seminar
• Universität Freiburg: Orientalisches Seminar
• Universität Göttingen: Seminar für Iranistik
• Berlin: Zentrum Moderner Orient

International

• Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies (San Francisco State University)
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Harvard University)
• Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies (Columbia University)
• Hamid and Christina MoghadamProgram in Iranian Studies (Stanford University)
• Institute of Ismaili Studies (London)
• IRAM – Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara
• Iranian Studies (University of Michigan)
• Jordan Center for Persian Studies (University of California)
• Orient-Institut Istanbul
• Oriental Institute (University of Chicago)
• Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre (history, languages and cultures of Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Oxford University)
• Pourdavoud Center for the Study of the Iranian World (University of California)
• Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (University of Pennsylvania)
• SOAS: School of Oriental and African Studies (London)
• The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (Saint Petersburg Russian Academy of Sciences)
• UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies (University of California)

Institutions, academic societies and networks

• Afghanistan Analysts Network
• Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (Kabul)
• American Center of Oriental Research (Amman)
• American Institute of Iranian Studies (AIIrS)
• American Oriental Society
• American Schools of Oriental Research
• Ancient India & Iran Trust (University of Cambridge)
• Association for Iranian Studies
• Association for the Study of Persianate Societies
• British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS)
• CAAN – Central Asian Analytical Network
• CrossArea e.V. (Association for Transregional Studies, Comparative Area Studies and Global Studies)
• Culture in Crisis (Project of the Victoria and Albert Museums)
• Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient (DAVO)
• Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG)
• Deutsche Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft
• Historians of Islamic Art
• IFRI-Institut Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (Located in Tehran, houses a very good Iranian library and manages the archive of Henry Corbin)
• International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS)
• Iranian Heritage Foundation (IHF)
• Islamicate Digital Humanities Network
• ISMEO: The International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies
• KIARA (German network of critical researchers in Islamic and Arabic Studies)
• Kurdish Institute of Paris
• Kurdish Studies Network
• MELA: Middle East Librarians Association
• MELCom: European Association of Middle East Librarians
• Middle East Medievalists
• Orient Institut Beirut (OIB) (affiliated with the Max Weber Foundation)
• Parzor: The UNESCO Parsi Zoroastrian Project
• Scandinavian Society for Iranian Studies (SSIS)
• Societas Iranologica Europaea
• Soudavar Memorial Foundation (SMF)
• The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS)
• The Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

Conferences

• Annual Conference of the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA)
• Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies (BCIS) (organized by the International Society for Iranian Studies)
• Conference of Iranian Studies (organized every four years by Societas Iranologica Europaea)
• Conference of the Scandinavian Society for Iranian Studies
• Convention of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies
• Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT)
• International Conference on Critical Muslim Studies
• Islamicate Digital Humanities Network Conference
• Symposia Iranica (biennial international graduate conference)

Awards, prizes and competitions

• The Saidi-Sirjani Book Award (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• The Lifetime Achievement Award (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• The Ehsan Yarshater Book Award (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• The Latifeh Yarshater Award (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• The Mashayekhi Dissertation Award (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• The Parviz Shahriari Book Award for History of Mathematics, Science and Technology (awarded by the Association for Iranian Studies)
• Various Awards from the Middle East Studies Association
• Duke University Iranian Studies Dissertation Award
• Persian Translation Prize (awarded by the Lois Roth Endowment, juried by members of the American Institute of Iranian Studies)
• Award for a European Ph.D. Thesis in Iranian Studies (awarded by Soctietas Iranologica Europaea)
• The World Prize for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of Islamic Studies & Iranian Studies
• Middle East Medievalists Awards & Prizes

4. New Media

Blogs

• Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)
• Achaemenid History and Culture (Telegram channel for sources on the Achaemenid period that provides a large amount of valuable both old and new research literature and even PDFs of rare publications)
• Afghanistan Analysts Network (political science analyses)
• Ajam Media Collective
• Afghanistan Zhaghdablai (blog by Afghanistan researcher Thomas Ruttig)
• Alte Kataloge in neuem Gewand (German librarian blog of the DFG-funded project „Orient-Digital“)
• ARYA Philatelic (philatelist blog by Sam Shamsabadi which features many Iranian stamps and postcard motives)
• Asian and African Studies Blog (projekt of the British Library)
• Bibliographia Iranica (Highly recommendable bibliography blog by Arash Zeini, Sajad Amiri, Shervin Farridnejad and Yazdan Safaee)
• Digital Ottoman Studies (Digital Humanities from the perspective of Ottoman and Turkish Studies)
• Dunyalook (very readable blog by Thomas Schad, who takes a look at language, literature, culture, politics and identity in the big in-between of Franconia, Berlin, Istanbul and Sarajevo)
• East by East West – Orient, Oriental Studies, Orientalism (by Arabic Studies scholar Wim Raven)
• German Civilians of Persia WWII
• H-Mideast-Medieval Resources (extensive overview of current research projects, dissertations, professional articles etc.)
• HAZİNE (well-known blog about archives and collections)
• InterSaME Project (project at the University of Hamburg on the intertwinedness of oral and written transmission of sacred traditions in the Middle East: The Arabic Qur’an, the Syriac Bible and the Hebrew Bible)
• Iranologie (very detailed blog & podcast on the early cultural history of Iran, by Khodadad Rezakhani)
• Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online (a project at the University of Michigan)
• Lesewerk Arabisch und Islam (by Arabic Studies scholar Wim Raven)
• Maps & Views Blog (cartography blog of the British Library)
• Maydan (by George Mason University)
• Memorients – Medieval and Early Modern Orients
• MENA Symbolism (a blog on symbols of the region, their history and impact, created by Omer Sayadi)
• Mizan Project (online magazine on muslim cultures and history)
• My Persian Corner (language, culture and travel blog by Pontia Fallahi)
• Persian, Translated (a database of Persian literature in English translation, by Ali Araghi)
• Prince of Black Sheep (beautiful codicology blog by Anita Chowdry)
• Qur’an Manuscript Studies Blog (founded by Ahmed Shaker)
• Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal
• Sharia Source (Project at Harvard Law School with extensive historical and current information, content and context on Islamic Law)
• Sonic Tehran (interdisciplinary project exploring Tehran as a sounded space)
• SquareKufic (blog on the history of Islamic art and architecture, by Giulia Gallini)
• The Afternoon Map (cartography blog)
• The Antiquities Coalition (blog und thinktank for preserving cultural heritage)
• The Digital Orientalist (blog about Digital Humanities in Oriental Studies that has meanwhile grown into an online magazine)
• The Legacy of Henry Corbin (research blog in the tradition of Henry Corbin)
• UniTartu Asia and Middle East (CAMES grad. students’ project. Digitized books, manuscripts, periodicals, maps and special collections from Asia and the Middle East)
• Voices on Central Asia (platform for scholars, authors, and journalists interested in Central Asia)
• Zoroastrian and Ancient Iranian Studies (research blog with many valuable links to archives, by Shervin Farridnejad)

Podcasts

• Abbasid History Podcast (hosted by S. Talha Ahsan)
• Academic Muslimahs (podcast about female Islamic Studies scholars, their research and life experiences, hosted by Prof. Saba Fatima)
• ADE: Afghanische Diaspora in Deutschland (advocates for more visibility of Afghan realities, lifestyles, and narratives. Offers deep talks on the Afghan diaspora with great speakers and guests)
• Ajam Media Collective Podcast (podcast on the persianate world and beyond)
• Akbar’s Chamber: Experts talk Islam
• Art of Islamic Illumination (on manuscripts and miniatures)
• Arts in Isolation (interviews with scholars from various fields, by Asia House)
• Bottled Petrichor (podcast on spiritual and intellectual currents in Islamic history)
• British Institute of Persian Studies Podcast
• Dawla: New Histories of the Mediæval Middle East (by the University of Ghent)
• Dige che khabar? (German political history podcast hosted by Stephanie Rohde und Adnan Tabatabai)
• Ein Auge auf Iran (hosted by Sebastian Mack)
• Head on History Podcast (hosted by Ali A. Olomi)
• History of Modern Iran (note: if you are the creator, please email me, I will reference your name and twitterlink here immediately)
• History of Persia (historiographical podcast with an accompanying blog hosted by Trevor Culley)
• History of the Sasanian Empire (hosted by Sam Tahmassebi)
• Iran für Anfänger (hosted by Lisa Neal)
• Iranologie (very detailed podcast on the early cultural history of Iran, hosted by Khodadad Rezakhani)
• Iran Podcast (hosted by Negar Mortazavi)
• Islamic History Podcast (hosted by Muttaqi Ismail)
• Kalamopod (podcast on themes in classical Islamic theology (kalam), hosted by Hannah C. Erlwein)
• Kerning Cultures (high quality produced podcast about the MENA region and beyond)
• King of Kings (podcast hosted by Christian Heiens on Iranian history from the death of Alexander the Great 323 onwards)
• Kurdish Women Podcast (if you are the creators, please contact me, so that I may add your names and twitter handles here)
• New Books in Islamic Studies (interviews with authors about their new publications with several hundred episodes available, a podcast series by the New Books Network)
• Oriental Institute Podcast (a project by the University of Chicago)
• Ottoman History Podcast (large archive with hundreds of episodes, by far not limited to Ottoman history)
• Project Wasta (about the job market for graduates of Oriental Studies)
• Reading Ferdowsi (hosted by Amir Khadem)
• Roqe („Conversations from, to, and about the Iranian diaspora“ hosted by Jian Ghomeshi)
• Šenāḫt-e mūsīqī-ye dastgāhī-ye Īrān (a course in the theory of dastgāh-music of Iran, read and taught by the great Mohammad Reza Lotfi, a programme originally recorded for Radio Farhang)
• Shelf Life (about the book as a medium and librarianship)
• Status Hour (audio magazine on topics from the MENA region)
• Tell me a history (regular German Islamic Studies Podcast hosted by Nadja Danilenko)
• The East is a Podcast (hosted by Sina Rahmani)
• The Golden Age of Islam (hosted by David DiMeo)
• The History of Iran (very detailed historical podcast about Iran with accompanying texts and further literature, hosted by Khodadad Rezakhani)
• The Kurdish Edition (hosted by Sardar Saadi & Tofan Sunbul)
• The Maydan Podcast (broad spectrum of topics in Islamic Studies, hosted by the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University)
• The South-East Passage (about the extended MENA and Mediterranae-region)

Vlogs

• Persika – Persian Things (historiographical vlog on the Achaemenid period by Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones)
• The Iranian Studies Collective UK (promoting research & academics working in Iranian Studies, hosted by Rowena Abdul Razak)

Social media communities

• Historians of Islamic Art Association (Facebook group)
• Iranian Studies Network (Facebook group)
• Islamicate Digital Humanities (Facebook group)

Tools & Apps

• Anki (create digital vocabulary and learning cards)
• Behnevis (converts Pinglish into Persian script)
• Calendar Converter for Near East Historians (practical calendar converter by Theo Beers)
• Character picker of last resort (very practical tool for transliterations by Theo Beers)
• GoogleDocs as an OCR-tool (a guide by Christopher S. Rose)
• Jedli (allows complex text search in Arabic language documents, project of the University of Hamburg)
• Kalīla and Dimna Reader (a tool for access to various texts and translations of Kalīla and Dimna, another tool by Theo Beers)
• List of university presses (if it’s unclear in which city a certain university press is located, here you will find relief)
• Prosody.ir (tool for quantitative analysis of Persian meter)
• ScanTaylor (convert scans or photos of Arabic or Persian texts into PDFs)
• Tesseract (OCR tool for advanced users, available via GitHub)
• Tropy (manage image files for research purposes)
• Vajehyab (search in all major Persian-Persian dictionaries, mobile apps available, too)

Miscellaneous

• Bamberger Islam-Enzyklopädie (Initiative of Prof. Patrick Franke of the University of Bamberg, who writes scientifically based Wikipedia articles on topics concerning Islam)
• Islamic Arts Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (initiative of Islamic Arts students directed by Dr. Stephennie Mulder)