Islam in all its complexity

At a time when many schools find they should address the historic, religious, and cultural backgrounds of their multicultural student body, it's often hard to find Islamic resources that don't focus on the media hype that includes religious extremists, oppressed women, or terrorists. However, Oxford University Press now offers one of the first databases to specifically address Islam and the Muslim culture with both respect and balance.

Grades 9–12+

Cost Unlimited access and concurrent pricing is available. Subscription pricing for K–12 schools is $395; subscription pricing for public and academic libraries begins at $895.

The Big Picture Oxford Islamic Studies Online encompasses over 3,000 reference entries, chapters from scholarly and introductory works, Qur'anic materials, primary sources, images, and time lines to provide students (or anyone interested in learning more about Islam) with a unique and in-depth resource. Users can search or browse by era, topic, and geographic region; filter to view a specific type of content; and make use of a variety of search forms to set criteria for locating biographical entries, bibliographic references, primary sources, and terms in the Qur'an and Concordance.

Oxford Islamic Studies Online features several major works, including articles from the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World (due to publish in October 2008), a six-volume work that covers the geographical and historical extent of Islam. In addition, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, which is also included on the site will remain available in full, allowing users access to archived articles that have been updated in the new work. Other resources range from the three-volume The Islamic World: Past and Present, a reference created by scholars for readers at all levels and that offers articles on everything from the Abbasid Caliphate to the life of Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, to the critically acclaimed The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, which provides authoritative essays by leading Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. Also included is the unique What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam which combines commonly asked questions about Muslim culture and Islam with thoughtful, unbiased replies from John L. Esposito, one of the leading Islamic studies scholars in the United States.

For those studying the Qur'an, the content within Oxford Islamic Studies Online provides users with direct links from Qur'anic verse citations to corresponding sections in the text, and offers a variety of ways to study the work that is at the center of the Islamic faith. Included in the database are two Oxford versions of the Qur'an, The Koran Interpreted, a verse translation by A.J. Arberry, and The Qur'an, a prose translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. The latter can be used individually or in conjunction with Hanna Kassis's A Concordance of the Qur'an. Concordance, a research tool for students of the Qur'an who are not fully conversant with the written Arabic language, allows users to find deeper understanding by linking English words and their corresponding transliterated Arabic terms to passages, chapters, and verses in the Qur'an.

Look & Feel Like many of Oxford University Press's online databases, Oxford Islamic Studies Online provides users with an academic, yet easily accessible interface that students can use immediately. They may start their research by using the Quick Search box at the top of the page or investigate the contents more thoroughly through the Navigation Bar, which provides links to various content types within the database. A Focus On section provides users with essays, images, and links to a specific topic or individual relevant to Islamic studies.

A Find Out More box allows users to browse images and refine their search by era, topic, or region. What's Inside provides basic information about the content of the database, including primary-source documents, the Qur'anic studies resources, and special features such as Images or the Timeline, which covers major events in the Islamic world and the corresponding events in world history.

How It Works: Quick searches can be performed by using the Search Box. By clicking Search in the navigation banner, students are given the option to perform a Main, a Biography, an Image, a Primary Source, a Bibliography, a Qur'an, or a Concordance search.

Through the Browse feature, students are able to investigate All topics (alphabetically), Subject Entries, Biographies, Chaptered Works, Primary Sources, and Images.

By using the Main search option, students may conduct searches within biographies, images, primary sources, bibliographies, the Qur'an, or the Concordance. Through each of these searches, a variety of filters including era and topic allow for refinement of the query.

A Biography search provides students with over 1,000 biographies of prominent Muslim and Islamic figures. Included in this information are names, places of birth, era, region or location, country of activity, profession, movements and schools, branch of Islam, and much more.

An Image search can be done through image title or caption or thematically by region, era, or topic. Primary Source searches can be performed upon the document information such as the title, author, date, commentary text, document type, year, and more. A Bibliography search allows students to examine over 7,500 bibliographic entries by author, title, publication year, country of activity, and many other criteria.

One unique feature of the database is the Qur'an search, which gives students the ability to search the full text of one or both interpretations of the Qur'an either separately or at the same time. Searches may be restricted to specific chapters, and results for all of them are divided into tabbed areas for ease-of-use in determining the content type (such as biographies, chaptered works, images, etc.) The Concordance search provides users with the ability to query the full text of the Concordance of the Qur'an through the use of English indexes, transliterated Arabic words, and Arabic root words. Searches can then be limited to specific English indices.

Searches are organized clearly and the database provides users with the ability to print or email results. Within each search page, a column to the left-hand side allows users to easily refine search results by Era, Topic, or Region.

Also within each article search content page, users are able to cite their work through ProCite™ , RefWorks ™, EndNote ™, or ReferenceManager ™.

Within each article page, users can activate the Highlight option in the navigation bar and illuminate any word within the text to perform an expanded search. Related Content information appears on the left-hand side of each entry to direct users to similar information within the database. The Qur'an chapter and verse citations are linked within each article to immediately direct users to the information relating to the article's content.

Through the Bibliography search, users can locate additional information through OpenURL, which directs them back to the library's online catalog to locate materials that may be available within the collection. This provides users with the opportunity to not only locate electronic information through the database, but also takes advantage of print resources owned by the library.

For users who are interested in searching the Concordance, the structure is provided through the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Searches are indicated by the entry root and the meanings associated with the word are displayed with a complete listing of where the word occurs in the full text of the Qur'an. Direct links to those verses are also given. By selecting a verse from the list, students can review a single interpretation or compare the texts side-by-side. Footnotes and verse cross-references are also linked within the text for additional information.

The Learning Resources area includes a glossary of Islamic terms, Internet links to resources such as politics, culture and society, faith and theology, art, geography, science, philosophy, and text collections, as well as suggestions for further reading.

For Students and Teachers Through Oxford Islamic Studies Online, students and faculty will be able to locate information not often available in any other format within the school library; to compare Islamic and World history timelines; and learn more about the people, the customs, and the lifestyles of Muslims.

“What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam,” by editor-in-chief and Islamic scholar, John L. Esposito, is one of the most important features of this wonderful research tool. Here students may browse specific topics such as religion and faith, customs and culture, violence and terrorism, and other important subjects.

Report Card Oxford Islamic Studies Online provides a long-awaited and much-needed resource for many high school libraries. It gives students and teachers the ability to research topics directly related to what is the world's second largest religion (and the third largest in America).

As one of the most distinctive databases to thoroughly address a subject area that may often be misunderstood, Oxford Islamic Studies Online easily earns an A+.