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.
