Arabia Asia Studies
The Arabia Asia Archives is a flagship project of the Arabia Asia Studies Programme. Since its establishment, our Programme has collaborated with researchers, affiliates, and students to build an archive of primary materials in Arabia Asia studies. We have jointly scanned manuscripts and documents from important, yet previously neglected indigenous sources held in private collections, including mosque libraries, institutions, and overlooked locations across Arabia and Asia. Unsurprisingly, we have found rich historical troves in places off the global arteries of major cities connected by air travel —sites once linked to distant regions by the sea, deserts, and mountain passes. We have also conducted ethnographic fieldwork, collected materials, and recorded inscriptions found at tombs, monuments, and mosques.
We have collaborated closely with local historians, students, descendants of notable scholarly families, religious leaders, institutions, and diasporic communities who have been key interlocutors of the transregional connections within the Arabia Asia matrix. In doing so, we have built regional capacity by enabling local enthusiasts and scholars to develop archives, strengthen skills, acquire equipment, and pursue academic credentials. This approach is essential because the wealth of materials produced over centuries of Arabia Asia interactions was poorly captured by colonial administrations and therefore rarely appears in the major metropolitan archives.
Our work has focused on key locations in Malabar in India and Hadramaut in Yemen. In Malabar, Abdul Jaleel has worked with the region’s Arab communities for several years. Through visits to long-established settlements in Calicut, Kannur, Tanur, Ponnani, and Chavakkad, he has identified important private libraries and collections held by Arab communities, educational institutions, and mosques. He has scanned significant manuscripts and sources from the Qadi households of Calicut, religious institutions such as Islahul Uloom Arabic College, Tanur, and from notable scholarly families—Hadramis, Makhdumis, and Bukharis—across the region. Our Malabar collections encompass history, biography, family genealogy, and tell the story of connections across the Indian Ocean.
In Hadramaut, we have established collaborations with the Tarim Centre for Research and Publishing, whose director, Abdul Rahman Bilfaqih, has scanned many important sources from the Hadramaut. These digital copies of the region’s rare and valuable materials serve as a vital cultural safeguard, helping to preserve a rich textual heritage. We have scanned historical and religious sources collected from families and institutions.
Taken together, these archival endeavours show that many of the most consequential sources on Arabia Asia historical interactions still lie beyond state archives. They include a wide variety of materials relevant to Islamic law, theology, Sufism, medicine, navigation, astronomy, literature, and linguistics. By catalysing collaborative work in historically rich, yet neglected locations, the Arabia Asia Archives both safeguards vulnerable textual heritage and expands the evidentiary base for new, more grounded accounts of transregional themes and processes.