Project Status & History
The Asnad.org project was initiated in 2003 at the Department of Islamic Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg by Dr Christoph Werner. From 2004-2007 it was supported through a generous research grant from the German Research Foundation. Most of the current material was added during this period with the helpf of several student research assistants and under the academic coordination of Bianca Devos. In 2008 the project moved to the newly established Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. In 2019 the database moved once more to the University of Bamberg.
We are continuously extending our database, adding new documents on a regular basis. The latest version of the database is completely web-based, built upon the Django web application framework. It has been programmed to allow multiple concurrent users and can integrate contributors from around the globe. With the latest update the number of documents available online has also grown considerably and now includes both published and unpublished archival material.
In particular, we were able to incorporate documents from the follwing monographs:- Qa'im-Maqami, Jahangir. Yaksad va panjah sanad-i tarikhi: az Jalayiriyan ta Pahlavi. Tihran 1348 (1969).
- Garthwaite, Gene. Khans and shahs: A documentary analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran. Cambridge 1983.
- Busse, Heribert. Untersuchungen zum islamischen Kanzleiwesen an Hand turkmenischer und safawidischer Urkunden. Kairo 1959.
- Chekhovich, Olga Dmitrieva. Samarkandskie dokumenty 15-16 vv.: O vladeniiakh Khodzhi Akhrara v Srednei Azii u Afganistane. Moskva 1974.
In addition to single articles featuring documents from Oriens, Central Asiatic Journal, Journal of the Panjab, Historical Society Turcica, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft,and Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, we included a large number of documents published in the following journals from Iran: Rahnamah-yi kitab, Barrasi-ha-yi tarikhi, and Farhang-i Iran Zamin. Also incorporated is an as of yet limited number of unpublished documents put at our disposal by various institutions and individuals.
