Islamic manuscripts constitute a particularly important part of Islamic heritage. During the fourteen centuries of its history, Islamic civilisation has produced a vast number of written works, mostly in Arabic and Persian, but also in Turkish, Urdu, Bengali, Malay, Swahili and others. These works number over three million and cover practically every field of thought, from Qur’anic commentary to jurisprudence, from history to astronomy, from geology to technology, from poetry to rhetoric, etc. They were produced throughout the Islamic world, from western China and the Malay Archipelago to Andalusia and the Maghreb. Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation was established initially with the aim to document and preserve this written heritage, principally through its work in surveying, cataloguing, editing, studying and publishing Islamic manuscripts.