A digital toolbox for Iranian Studies and beyond

Last updated on 20 November 2020, links in backlog yet to be added: 100+
To make a suggestion or report a mistake: Contact me via email or social media.

It inspires and motivates me time and again how many digital tools, collections, research projects, inspiring blogs and podcasts about Iranian Studies and relevant other fields there are now. Over the course of time I have accumulated a large number of scattered notes and links, which I will bundle here in this research compendium. Especially the list of university institutes and international institutions still needs to be expanded. I will constantly extend the list and keep it up to date, suggestions for additions are always welcome!

Substiantial contributions were gathered from: HAZİNE, Amanda Hannoosh Steinberg, Shervin Farridnejad, Evyn Kropf.

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 made by the Internet Archive)
• PropylaeumSearch (mainly classical studies and historiography)

Catalogues

• Library catalogues via the Orient-Institute Istanbul
• 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 of Congress
• National library and archive of Iran
• Austrian joint library network
• Swiss national library
• Special Collections Catalogue of Leiden University
• 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

General overview of academic databases (Project by University of Heidelberg)
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)

• 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)
• 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
• 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)
• 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)

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)
• 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 texts

• 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 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 digizized 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)
• 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)
• 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)
• Mystik & Aszese des 16.-19. Jahrhunderts (mysticism & asceticism 16th -19th Centuries)
• 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)
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (autobiographical documents about immigration to the USA)
• 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
• 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
• 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)
• 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)
• 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 and media

Digitized manuscripts and codicology resources

• 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)
• 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)
• Fihrist (Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World, by Universities of Oxford and Cambridge)
• 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 (vast link collection by University of Michigan)
• 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)
• Oriental Collections (Royal Library of Denmark)
• Oriental manuscripts (University library Tübingen)
• 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
• 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)
• 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
• 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)
• 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)

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
• Traditional Crossroads (record label for world music, distributes historical recordings from Iran, Armenia, etc.)

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)
• Digital Library for International Research (various maps, for example of the Ottoman Empire)
• GeoNames (worldwide location search in over 11 million place names)
• Historical Atlas of Islam
• Map of old Tehran in comparison with new Tehran (by Ali Tayebi)
• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Asia (University of Texas)
• 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)

Numismatics

• ZENO (oriental coins database)

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)
• 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
• Fritillaria Kurdica: Bulletin of Kurdish Studies
• Heidelberger Brief – Mitteilungen zur Iranistik (Iranian Studies newsletter, discontinued in 2019)
• Indo-Iranian Journal
• International Journal of Islamic Architecture
• International Journal of Middle East Studies
• International Quarterly for Asian Studies
• Iran Nameh
• IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies
• Iranian Studies
• Īrānšenāsī
• Iranica Antiqua (studies on pre-islamic Iran)
• Islamic Law and Society
• Journal Asiatique
• Journal of Developing Societies
• Journal of Islamic Manuscripts
• Journal of Islamic Studies
• Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies
• Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies
• 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
• Moṭāleʿāt-e īrānšenāsī (interdisciplinary Persian language journal on Iranian Studies)
• Oriens
• Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica
• Oriente Moderno
• 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
• Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development
• Sociology of Islam
• Spektrum Iran: Zeitschrift für Islamisch-Iranische Kultur
• Studia Iranica
• Studia Islamica
• The Journal of Mesopotamian Studies
• The Middle East Journal
• The Muslim World
• Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
• 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

Germany, Austria, Switzerland

• Universität Hamburg: Asien-Afrika-Institut
• Freie Universität Berlin: Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies
• Universität Teheran: Dehḫodā Lexicon Institute & International Center for Persian Studies
• 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)
• Institute of Ismaili Studies (London)
• Iranian Studies (University of Michigan)
• Jordan Center for Persian Studies (University of California)
• Orient-Institut Istanbul
• Oriental Institute (University of Chicago)
• 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 (Russische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
• 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)
• 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
• Kurdish Institute of Paris
• Kurdish Studies Network
• MELA: Middle East Librarians Association
• MELCom: European Association of Middle East Librarians
• 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
• Symposia Iranica (biennial international graduate conference)

4. New Media

Blogs

• Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)
• Afghanistan Analysts Network (political science analyses)
• Ajam Media Collective
• Afghanistan Zhaghdablai (blog by Afghanistan researcher Thomas Ruttig)
• Asian and African Studies Blog (projekt of the British Library)
• 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)
• Iranologie (very detailed blog & podcast on the early cultural history of Iran, by Khodadad Rezakhani)
• 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
• Mizan Project (online magazine on muslim cultures and history)
• 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
• 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)
• Zoroastrian and Ancient Iranian Studies (research blog with many valuable links to archives, by Shervin Farridnejad)

Podcasts

• A better Beirut (also deals with topics of (post-)modernity)
• Abbasid History Podcast
• Academic Muslimahs (podcast about female Islamic Studies scholars, their research and life experiences, presented by Prof. Saba Fatima)
• 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)
• B for Bacchus (relaxed and informative podcast on the history of wine production and consumption in the Levant, East Mediterranean and Caucasus, presented by Farrah Berrou)
• Bottled Petrichor (podcast on spiritual and intellectual currents in Islamic history)
• Bulaq (podcast on contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa)
• Citations Needed (differentiated and critical views of Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson on „the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit“)
• Dawla: New Histories of the Mediæval Middle East (by the University of Ghent)
• Dige che khabar? (German political history podcast by Stephanie Rohde und Adnan Tabatabai)
• Head on History Podcast (by Ali A. Olomi)
• History of Modern Iran
• History of Persia (historiographical podcast with an accompanying blog by Trevor Culley)
• History of the Sasanian Empire
• Islamic History Podcast (by Muttaqi Ismail)
• Kerning Cultures (high quality produced podcast about the MENA region and beyond)
• King of Kings (podcast by Christian Heiens on Iranian history from the death of Alexander the Great 323 onwards)
• Kurdish Women Podcast
• 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 (by far not limited to Ottoman history)
• Project Wasta (about the job market for graduates of Oriental Studies)
• Reading Ferdowsi (by Amir Khadem)
• 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 by Nadja Danilenko)
• The East is a Podcast (by Sina Rahmani)
• The Golden Age of Islam (by David DiMeo)
• The History of Iran (very detailed historical podcast about Iran with accompanying texts and further literature, by Khodadad Rezakhani)
• The Kurdish Edition (by Sardar Saadi & Tofan Sunbul)
• The Maydan Podcast (broad spectrum of topics in Islamic Studies)
• The South-East Passage (about the extended MENA and Mediterranae-region)
• Turkey Book Talk (interviews with authors about Turkey and beyond)

Vlogs

• Persika – Persian Things (historiographical vlog on the Achaemenid period by Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones)

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)
• ScanTaylor (convert scans or photos of Arabic or Persian texts into PDFs)
• Tesseract (OCR tool für 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, who edit Wikipedia articles scientifically and write new articles)