Search the whole corpus
Run deep full-text searches across every transcribed line — by word, root or phrase — and jump straight to the folio in the reading viewer.
Open the searchManuscripts of al-Andalus & the Maghrib
Andalusian
Digital Archive
الأرشيف الأندلسي الرقمي
A public reading room for the written heritage of al-Andalus — read page by page in a deep-zoom viewer, with line-by-line transcription where the text has been recovered.
13,612Manuscripts
1,010,637Folios digitized
7,343Pages transcribed
16Subjects
The reading room
Read, annotate, discuss — and ask
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Read in IIIF
Open any manuscript page by page in Mirador, with deep-zoom imaging and a line-by-line transcription layer that reads right-to-left where the script demands.
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Annotate & cite
Anchor private notes and academic references to specific folios through the per-manuscript Research panel — your notebook lives with the page.
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Discuss page by page
Open a conversation against any canvas — questions, corrections, hypotheses — and let other readers reply at the line that prompted them.
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Ask, with citations
Put a question to the archive and read an answer grounded in references the assistant cites back to the source — or it refuses.
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Meet around a manuscript
Convene a seminar, a working group, or a reading party with screen-share and multi-party video, built on the open Jitsi stack.
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Audio rooms
Run a public debate or a closed study circle in a live audio room over SIP and WebRTC — voices in, no screens required.
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Direct messaging
See who else is reading, message a colleague at a folio, and keep a thread alive between sessions with real-time presence.
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Scan from your phone
Turn any modern camera phone into a manuscript-capture tool — frame, scan and submit pages straight to a curator for ingestion.
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Open access · public domain · non-profit
An open library for a scattered inheritance
The Andalusian Digital Archive is a non-profit, open-source effort to gather the written heritage of al-Andalus and the Maghrib — manuscripts and archival documents dispersed across the libraries and state archives of the world — into a single, freely searchable reading room.
For centuries these works have lain apart: a Qur'an in Munich, a legal compendium in the Escorial, Morisco trial papers in Simancas, Saharan codices in Timbuktu. Described to a common standard, transcribed line by line and searchable as one corpus, they cease to be isolated objects and become a connected field — letting a scholar follow a hand, a text or an idea across collections never meant to be read side by side.
Every work gathered here is in the public domain. Read it, cite it, download it, build upon it — and share and redistribute it freely.
Help us read it
Transcriptions are machine-generated and grow sharper with expert eyes. Collaborate on reviewing and supervising them, or contribute manuscripts to the archive.
Get involvedFeatured
Recovered in full
The library by theme
Explore by subject
Fifteen fields of Andalusi learning — from law and medicine to the clandestine Aljamiado of the Moriscos. Choose a thread and follow it through the archive.
Aljamiado & Morisco العجمية والموريسكية Fiqh & Law الفقه والقانون Grammar & Lexicography النحو واللغة Sufism & Devotional التصوف والأذكار Theology & Creed العقيدة والكلام Adab & Poetry الأدب والشعر Agronomy & Natural History الفلاحة والطبيعة History & Geography التاريخ والجغرافيا Hadith الحديث Occult Sciences العلوم الخفية Medicine & Pharmacology الطب والصيدلة Philosophy & Logic الفلسفة والمنطق Astronomy & Mathematics الفلك والرياضيات Miscellany & Other مجاميع ومتفرقات Music الموسيقى Maps خرائط
Curated holdings
Special collections
Archives
Collections
Libraries of a shared heritage
Eleven curated reading rooms drawn from the world's major archives, dedicated institutional partners, and open dossiers that invite the next generation of decoders.
Sacromonte Collection
The world's most complete open dossier on the Lead Books, the Torre Turpiana parchment, and the still-unread Libro Mudo — an invitation to international decoders.
ExploreQNL Andalusian Collection
Andalusi manuscripts from the British Library and partner institutions, made openly accessible through the Qatar National Library's digital programme.
ExploreBodleian Collection
Arabic, Hebrew and Aljamiado manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries — Oxford's centuries-deep holdings of the Iberian and Maghribi worlds.
ExploreThe engine
Qalamus — HTR models trained for Andalusi scripts
Every transcription here is produced by Qalamus, our open manuscript-recognition engine, with handwritten-text-recognition models trained specifically on Maghribī rounded hands, eastern Naskh, and the Aljamiado of the Moriscos. The models improve with every corrected line.
- 12 HTR models trained
- 7,343 Lines transcribed
- 9 Scribal hands recognised
Contribute
Contribute from your phone
If you can hold a manuscript and a phone steady, you can help build the archive — a guided in-browser scanner walks you from page to submission.
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Point the camera
Open the scanner in your mobile browser and hover over the page — no app to install, no account beyond your reader sign-in.
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Frame the page
An on-device detector finds the page edges, corrects perspective, and refuses blurry or shadowed shots before they reach the queue.
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Submit the scan
Add a short description and a target collection, then send the multi-page PDF straight to a curator for review and ingestion.
Any phone with a good camera and good light works. Sign in to upload.
The museum
Walk the halls
Beyond the reading room, six themed halls present the archive as a museum — a guided walk through the libraries of al-Andalus, the sciences, the law schools, the Aljamiado underground, the Saharan continuation, and the Sacromonte affair.
Immersive 3D galleries are next — the same halls rendered as walkable rooms, with manuscripts on lecterns and a curator's voice at your shoulder.
Walk the hallsPartners
Hold a collection? We host it.
We work with libraries, archives, museums and private collectors to publish their Andalusi and Maghribi material under their own name — at no cost, on open standards, with curatorial control retained by the holder.
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Universities & national archives
Mount your manuscripts as a named collection, set the access policy, and give your researchers a viewer styled to your institution — IIIF native, exportable, yours.
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Private collectors
Open part of a private library to credentialed readers — public catalogue, gated reading, per-manuscript permissions, and no obligation to release what you'd rather keep close.
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Standards & interop
Everything here speaks IIIF Presentation 3.0 and travels as portable manifests — for libraries that want their material legible to every other library, not just to us.
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Three ways in
Read, contribute, partner
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Read
Open the catalogue, find a manuscript, and read it folio by folio in the deep-zoom viewer — free, no account required to browse.
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Contribute
Scan a manuscript you have access to, correct a transcription, or join the discussion on a page that interests you — the archive grows with its readers.
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Partner
If you hold Andalusi or Maghribi material — a library, an archive, a personal collection — we will help you publish it on your terms.
Write to us