The Islamic Antiquarian Society of the Americas (IASA) is a scholarly initiative dedicated to preserving, documenting, and advancing research on the printed, manuscript, and archival history of Islam and Muslims throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Muslim presence in the Americas spans centuries and reflects a wide range of historical experiences, including enslavement, migration, trade, intellectual exchange, institution-building, and community formation. Yet the documentary record of these histories remains widely dispersed across private collections, institutional archives, community holdings, and rare printed materials. Much of this record remains difficult to access and, in some cases, vulnerable to permanent loss.
IASA seeks to address this gap by identifying, preserving, digitizing, and making accessible the bibliographic and documentary heritage of Islam in North America, South America, and the Caribbean. The Society is concerned especially with rare books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, manuscripts, ephemera, organizational records, and other historical sources that illuminate Muslim intellectual and communal life in the Americas.
While the Society’s primary focus is the Western Hemisphere, it also recognizes that Islam in the Americas cannot be understood in isolation from the wider global Islamic intellectual tradition. Accordingly, IASA also values books, catalogues, and reference works produced outside the Americas when they provide essential historical, bibliographic, or scholarly context for the study of Islam and Muslims in the region.
In addition to preservation and documentation, IASA aims to cultivate a broader scholarly network dedicated to the study of Islam in the Americas. Its long-term vision includes the solicitation of scholarly papers, the development of digital bibliographic resources, and the organization of conferences, symposia, and other forms of academic exchange.
The Society’s website serves as an initial demonstration of what is possible and as a foundation for building the institutional support necessary to establish a lasting research and preservation initiative. Future development will include digitization infrastructure, the securing of reproduction rights, and the creation of a durable platform for research, documentation, and publication.
Through research, documentation, and publication, the Islamic Antiquarian Society of the Americas seeks to ensure that the printed and manuscript history of Islam and Muslims in the Americas is preserved with care, studied with rigor, and made accessible for future generations.
If you have questions, and or comments, please contact us by e-mail at [info@islamicasa.org].
