Wellcome Arabic Manuscripts Online
The Arabic manuscripts collection of the Wellcome Library (London) comprises around 1000 manuscript books and fragments relating to the history of medicine. For the first time this website enables a substantial proportion of this collection to be consulted online via high-quality digital images of entire manuscripts and associated rich metadata.
This has been made possible by a pioneering partnership between the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Wellcome Library, and King's College London, with funding from the JISC Islamic studies programme.
These manuscripts are part of the Wellcome Library's Asian Collection, which comprises some 12,000 manuscripts and 4,000 printed books in 43 different languages. The Islamic holdings include Arabic and Persian manuscripts and printed books, and a small collection of Ottoman manuscripts and Turkish books. The core of these collections relates to the great heritage of classical medicine, preserved, enlarged and commentated on throughout the Islamic world, stretching from Southern Spain to South and South-east Asia.
Using this site
This website supports search and browse functionality using either the search bar or by browsing facets in the "Browse and Find page".
Cover-to-cover manuscript images can be viewed alongside the catalogue records, including links from the metadata to specific relevent images.
Two manuscripts - both images and metadata - can be compared side-by-side.
Some aspects of the manuscripts have been transcribed in Arabic script, including significant front matter (incipit, basmala, etc.), back matter (explicit, colophon), and in many cases the complete listing of content headings found in the text.
Sharing and bookmarkable URLs are enabled via the "sharing toolbar" available in the Browse and Find page.
Images and metadata on this site can be used free of charge under the Creative Commons 2.0 (UK and Ireland) license.
For further help on using this site, visit the Help page.