American University of Beirut

Manuscripts Archives & Special Collections

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The University Libraries owns approximately 1,800 manuscripts in several languages, the majority of which are in Arabic. The core clusters were acquired as early as the late 19th century from the prestigious private libraries of the Syrian Society for the Arts and Sciences (1847- 1852); Nawfal Nimatallah Nawfal's (1811-1887) and the distinguished Lebanese historian 'Īsá Iskandar al-Ma'luf (1869-1956); and lately obtained around 400 manuscripts, in 2015, that comprise the rest of the Ma'luf's collection. The manuscripts cover a wide range of subjects, e.g., theology, fiqh, astronomy, Arabic language and literature, history, geography, and the various sciences, and attract researchers from all over the world. Some have become well-known and have acquired a name of their own such as the Beirut Codex, a New Testament in Syriac, dating back to the 9th or 10th c. A digital copy of the catalog of our Arabic manuscript collection compiled by Dr. Yusuf Khoury and listing most of the AUB Libraries manuscripts, entitled 'al-Makhtutat al-'Arabiyah al-mawjudah fi maktabat al-Jami'ah al-Amirikiyah fi Bayrut' and published in 1985, can be found below.


Digitized Arabic Manuscripts​

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