Reference Sources
- The encyclopaedia of Islam This link opens in a new windowThe Encyclopaedia of Islam Online sets out the present state of our knowledge of the Islamic World. It is a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only for the religion, but also for the believers and the countries in which they live. Access provided for the 2nd edition, a Glossary and Index of Terms to the 2nd edition, the ongoing 3rd edition, and a Historical Atlas of Islam.
- Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic worldCovers Jewish history, religion and culture in Muslim lands, covering the seventh century to the present (2010), particularly in the late medieval, early modern and modern periods.
The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture by ISBN: 9780195373042Publication Date: 2009-02-05The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture is the most comprehensive reference work in this complex and diverse area of art history. Built on the acclaimed scholarship of the Grove Dictionary of Art, this work offers over 1,600 up-to-date entries on Islamic art and architecture ranging from the Middle East to Central and South Asia, Africa, and Europe and spans over a thousand years of history.
Scholarly Resources
- Academic Search Premier (EBSCO)Broad collection of fulltext scholarly journals and related periodicals in all scholarly disciplines. Includes bibliographic citations, indexing and abstracting for more than 8,000 periodicals. A component of EBSCO MegaFILE.
- Historical AbstractsHistorical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).
- Index IslamicusBibliographic citations with subject indexing on Islam, the Middle East, and the Muslim world in general, including Muslims in Africa and Asia and major Muslim minorities worldwide. Topics covered include: education, law, bibliography and scholarship, libraries, philosophy, natural and applied sciences, arts, architecture, geography and travel, social sciences, archaeology, history, economics, politics and current affairs, as well as religion and theology
- JSTORJSTOR specializes in making available the back issues of journals in a wide variety of humanities and social science disciplines. Issues are available both as images and as text, making searching possible both within each title and across the whole database.
Penn's subscription currently includes all the available collections:
- the Arts & Sciences Collection I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and the Complement
- the Business II & III Collection
- the Biological Sciences Collection
- the Health & General Science Collection
- the Language and Literature Collection
- the Music Collection
- the 19th Century British Pamphlets
Access to journals from JSTOR is restricted to current Penn faculty, staff and students.
Printing from the JSTOR database requires downloading a helper application called JPrint.
Open Access Primary Sources
Aleppo. Shrine of Abu Bekir. Closer view. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2019691511/.
- American Center of Research Photo ArchiveIncludes photo related to archaeology and daily life.
- ArchnetFocused on architecture of the Islamic world.
- Khayrallah Center ArchiveFocused on the Lebanese diaspora but also has materials on Syria.
- Syrian Cassette ArchivesAn initiative to preserve, share and research sounds and stories from Syria’s abundant cassette era (1970s-2000s).
Penn Subscribed Primary Sources
- British PeriodicalsBritish Periodicals tracks the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the seventeenth century through to the Victorian 'age of periodicals' and into the 20th century. On completion this digital archive will consist of more than 460 periodical runs published from the 1680s to the 1930s, comprising six million keyword-searchable pages and forming an unrivalled record of more than two centuries of British history and culture.
- Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan.
- The French Mandate in The Lebanon, Christian-Muslim relations, and the U.S. Consulate at Beirut, 1920-1941This collection consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by the American consular post in Beirut. The topics covered by these records include the protection of interests of American citizens, foreign trade, shipping, and immigration. But there is more to these records than traditional consular activities—the Beirut post provides a unique look into the French Mandate in Syria-Lebanon. Consular officials reported on the administration of the Mandate, its problems, French repression and Arab rebellion.
- Evangelism and the Syria-Lebanon mission : correspondence of the Board of Foreign Missions, 1869-1910.The records of the Board of Foreign Missions provide invaluable information on social conditions in Greater Syria (and Lebanon) and on efforts to spread the gospel during the nineteenth century. Documenting the church's educational, evangelical, and medical work, these are records mainly of incoming correspondence from the mission field and outgoing correspondence from the Board headquarters.
