This paper raises fundamental questions about the flow of information and questions representation in the creation and sustenance of online resources, particularly in relation to representation of the cultures of the Middle East. Optimist had a near utopian view of the revolutionary potential power of the internet, arguing that it provides a forum through which anyone with a computer can reach an audience of millions, without regard to frontiers and in defiance of the censors that held such easy control over traditional medial. Everyone could be a publisher and broadcaster from any connected computer anywhere. It has also made it possible to preserve entire libraries of books and media on a few hard drives, and to make them available across the globe. No one should ever be able to suppress culture or history again. Those who dared to point out that technology is expensive and that an enormous digital divide existed between those parts of the world that were connected and those that weren’t were condemned as luddites, for technology could overcome all problems. In fact the digital divide remains and is profound, but it is only one of many issues that have thwarted the realization of the utopian ideal. This paper looks at the issues attempts to represent the MENA region in digital world, and considers the challenges they have faced such as funding, intellectual property law, and finding an audience. Ultimately even the best-intentioned projects can serve to reinforce the existing neo-colonial order.

The politics of the digitization of Islamic materials is rarely discussed let alone analysed. A recent example of this phenomenon is the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Iran in which the digital medium played a decisive role. However, less attention had been focussed on the existence of a gaping “digital divide” in academic digitization initiatives. The digitization of Islamic materials has steadily increased with numerous projects and websites dedicated to legal (and illegal) digital surrogates of printed books and manuscripts. Yet, as the digital field continues to grow one must consider the long-term implications of this massive growth. What materials are being digitized and therefore, made more accessible and more likely to be studied? Conversely, what is not being digitized? What unintentional lacunae are being created by the unsystematic approach of current digital Islamic humanities projects? A survey of the Islamic digital field will guide one to many digital projects underway in academic institutions on subjects such as the classical Persian poetry of Firdawsi and Saʻdi; Arabic philosophical texts e.g. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Ghazzali; (Mughal) miniature paintings; and calligraphic specimens. Each of these projects has merits and offers great insight into the culture of the Muslim world. However, cohesive and coherent plans to digitize materials exist only at the local institutional level. Herein lies one prominent aspect of the “digital divide,” that is, the imbalance of power between the countries of the Middle East and North America in deciding what ought to be digitized, and thereby simultaneously defining what ought to be studied. This has led to an imbalance of materials available to new scholars and has largely left local considerations of what materials are significant out of the equation. This paper will discuss the issues of the digital divide in terms of Islamic materials. In so doing, the paper will articulate the opportunities and challenges of digitizing Islamic materials and the impact on future scholars and the access to resources.

The objective of this paper is to categorise the types of restrictions that create obstacles for the implementation of digitization projects in the Egyptian manuscripts libraries. The paper will focus on the Central Library of Islamic Manuscripts, known as Awakaf Library as it is obvious example of the restrictions that teamwork encountered at the early stages of this project. This paper is based on an observational method that has been gained from a personal involvement, teamwork approach, and viewpoints in the mentioned project, in addition to being involved in some other projects in Egypt. In order to highlight the types of restrictions, two major cases will be presented. First, the case of manuscripts on magic; and second, the case of digitising the mushaf attributed to Uthman ibn Affan. As a result, three categories of restrictions on the digitization projects were generated. The first category is the restrictions on the digitization in general, it is mainly due to the bureaucracy in the manuscripts institutions itself. The second category is the restrictions on the digitization processes or workflows because of the misperception of the digitization; such as prohibiting some resources from being digitised, or spending significant time to secure the digitised manuscripts; and the final category of restrictions is the decision making for the digitised manuscript accessed. Mentioning some other examples from other manuscripts libraries make it noticeable that all manuscripts libraries in Egypt are having one, or some of these restrictions that have been elaborated in the result section. Consequently, many of manuscript Digitization projects have not been completed, or delivered.

Iran, among the largest nations in the Middle East with one of the youngest populations, is home to a plethora of archaeological sites that reach back more than 60,000 years. Archaeological research is thriving as are preservation and stabilization efforts of archaeological sites and monuments. At the same time, as one can imagine, there is a very lively debate on how best to preserve the Iran’s rich artistic and cultural heritage with multiple stakeholders entangled with aspects of economic growth and development. There is now a significant bibliography and theoretical literature on the history, politics, and efforts of the preservation of archives and sites in the Middle East that includes the archaeology of more recent historic sites and living memories. At the same time, as recent research into ongoing digitization projects and international standardization efforts have shown, the digitization of archival documents and objects on sites, in museums and other institutions is not uncontested. Often, these digitization processes are faced with multiple challenges. Seen from a philosophical standpoint, archives and their future can become contested in their own methods and preferences of classification and organization and standardization. In recent years, cultural heritage debates have undergone rapid changes due to the impact of the new technologies, and archives have played a vital role in these changes. Photographs and glass plate negatives, letters, notebooks, squeezes, movie-stills, architectural and artifact drawings and other records created during the first three years of excavations at Persepolis between 1931 and 1934 are kept today in various archives, mainly outside Iran. Following the rapid spread of the vast numbers of documents and archives produced during excavations by a German-American team at Persepolis, I argue that we can identify patterns in this spread and we can learn from these past experiences with the dispersal of materials and archives from the site thereby focusing our future efforts on effective ways of archival record keeping and digitization and disseminating. In the end, my contribution will throw light on aspects of the historiography of archival materials from one of the most important cultural heritage sites in the Middle East.

Digitization has tended to be idealized as the savior for historic manuscripts in the MENA region. It has been promoted by important world bodies such as UNESCO, which in its 2012 Vancouver Declaration, wrote that while digitization is “not in itself a major means of preservation,” it was “for some types of material, …the only means of ensuring their survival” . It is often assumed that once digitized, historical documents will be made available unconditionally on the internet. However, in the case of manuscripts held by private owners in North Africa, preservation, and not public access generally motivate the desire for digitization. In Morocco, where manuscripts are family heirlooms and sometimes the only wealth an ancestor may have left their descendants (Benjelloun-Laroui 1990), digitization can be seen as a loss of possession. Furthermore, ideas such as “the democratization of access” to digitized manuscripts or of “world heritage” (versus local owner rights), add complexity to the scenario in MENA where large numbers of historic documents are in various states of deterioration. For Bowery and Anderson (2009) “the ideals of global sharing masks historical, political and cultural tensions.” In North Africa, part of the tension stems from a colonial past where French authorities confiscated manuscripts , causing Moroccans to bury or otherwise conceal their valuable documents in order to “save” them from colonial hands. This paper explores the divergence between the perspective of international digitization initiatives, which often demand a copy of the manuscripts they digitize, and private manuscript owners for whom the perceived loss of ownership makes digitization prohibitive. It hopes to inform more owner-sensitive digitization policies that take region and historic context into consideration so that digitization is not a “new form of imperialism” whereby Western countries loot the material heritage of developing countries “in the name of preservation” (Pickover and Peters 2002).