Al Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation

Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 22 A Old Court Place, London, W8 4PL, England

Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation was established in London in 1988 by the Yamani Cultural and Charitable Foundation.

The Foundation has as its aim the documentation and preservation of the Islamic written heritage. It is pursuing this aim principally through its work in surveying, cataloguing, editing and publishing Islamic manuscripts.

Islamic manuscripts are estimated to number three million, covering subjects as diverse as the Quran, Prophetic traditions, jurisprudence, logic and philosophy, as well as mathematics, botany, biology, poetry and literature, and art and crafts.

Nowadays these manuscripts are not the exclusive preserve of Arab and other Muslim countries, or even of countries with large Muslim minorities. Manuscripts are found extensively in Europe, the Americas, Japan, Australia and Africa. There is hardly a country that does not possess some manuscripts produced under the aegis of the Muslim civilisation.

This large and important resource is, tragically, in great danger of being damaged or even lost forever. Political conflict, social upheaval or merely natural causes - whenever and wherever there is a lack of resources essential for its maintenance and preservation, this heritage is in danger.

Al-Furqan Foundation is committed to mobilising every available expertise to preserve these manuscripts and to restore their content to the cultural mainstream.

The Library main objective is to uphold the Foundation’s mission by enhancing access to the Islamic Heritage resources in general and to the world catalogues of Islamic Manuscripts in particular.

The library has collected over the last 19 years catalogues of Islamic Manuscripts from 76 countries.

In 1989 the Foundation did set up a research project to investigate as comprehensively as possible the collections of Islamic manuscripts existing world-wide. This survey differs from similar projects in that it includes uncatalogued collections and provides detailed information concerning their contents and also covers private collections. 106 countries were surveyed.

This project lasted around 10 years to complete. Its results were published in 4 Volumes. This publication is also available in Arabic.

More information about the Foundation and its publications is available and can be ordered online.

Al-Furqan activities:

Promoting, initiating and sponsoring research in the field of Islamic manuscripts

Surveying Islamic Manuscript collections.

Cataloguing previously uncatalogued Islamic manuscripts.

Preserving Islamic manuscript collections.

Publishing new critical editions of Islamic manuscripts of particular significance.

Training qualified to work in the fields of cataloguing and preservation.

Establishing a reference library with the main research tools necessary for the study of Islamic manuscripts.

Holding conferences, symposia, and lectures and discussions