The written legacy of the Islamic world from the eighth to the twentieth centuries, with an emphasis on Arabic and Persian manuscripts, together with Western books and manuscripts dealing with Islamic cultures and countries.

Quaritch has been handling such material since the nineteenth century, and has been instrumental in the expansion and refinement of many major collections. Among the important works to pass through our hands have been a manuscript of Nizami's Khamsah, copied for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1595, now MS Add. 12208 at the British Library; a set of four volumes from a thirty volume Qur'an, one of the earliest known examples of Eastern Kufic, now MS 1417 at the Chester Beatty Library; and Pagano's monumental view of Cairo, printed at Venice in 1549, one of two surviving copies, now in a private collection.