Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas (SMNA) Library was established in 1989 to support the instructional and research needs of members of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC). Its multi-lingual collection is one of the largest and most authoritative on Islamic studies and on comparative thought and civilization. The library was named after the founder-director of the institute, Professor Tan Sri Dr Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas.

Currently the Library has over 150,000 volumes of books: 64,237 in the general and reference collections, 26,084 bound journals, 46,811 scholars’ collections and rare books, 2,554 manuscripts in book form as well as17,922 volumes in micro form.

Also available are works of erudite scholarship in various Islamic languages such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and Malay, and Western languages such as English, French, German, Dutch, Russian, Greek and Latin. These include encyclopedias of religions, cultures and sciences; multilingual and authoritative dictionaries of major Islamic languages and languages of the Occident and the Orient; bibliographies encompassing various disciplines; catalogues of rare collections of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Malay and other Muslim manuscripts kept in various libraries of the world; indices of different sciences; collected works of major thinkers and authors; major works on religion, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, law and jurisprudence, science and technology, languages, literatures, poetry, history, art and architecture, fine arts and education; and Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Malay and Urdu manuscripts dealing with diverse subjects and fields of knowledge.