System

The system is made up of numbers and letters, which are both equally important for finding a book in the library. The classification is used to classify books by theme and locate related books in the same area.

The two capital letters refer to the subject area, so BE for Religious Studies, NK and NM for History and EH for non-European languages. The four-digit number after the letters allows for a narrower classification within the theme. The area BE includes numbers 8600 to 8694, whereby, for example, 8620 relates to modern developments, 8666 is for Islamic art and 8614 is for titles under the subject of biography and Prophet worship. The area NK includes numbers 3950 to 4195. Under NK 3964, social and cultural history is stored chronologically, the history of Egypt from 1500-1918 is organized under NK 4104, and travel descriptions and travel reports are organized under NK 4172.

After the four-digit number (BE 8621) comes the author code. This consists of a letter and a three-digit number (S947 = Suhrawardi, Yahya Ibn Habash as-). This component is a computer-generated “codification”, which assigns each author a specific combination of letters and numbers. In some cases, this may mean that books by an author are placed in the same place by the system, side by side and with identical shelfmarks. In this case, books can only be distinguished by the book title. In the Islamic Studies library, therefore, all non-European language books are provided with an additional classification of the title or publisher consisting of letters and numbers to avoid identical shelfmarks being assigned (BE 8643 S947 C7). The detailed shelf classification can be found on the side of each shelf.

Islamic Studies
BE 8600 – 8603 introductions, manuals, and technical history
BE 8604 –8609 Islam outside the Near and Middle East
BE 8610 – 8619 Quran and Hadith
BE 8620 – 8624 Modern social movements, society, and the history of ideas
BE 8625 – 8639 Islamic law
BE 8640 – 8649 Sufism
BE 8650 – 8659 Cult
BE 8670 – 8694 Theology
NK 3950 – 3970 Social, cultural, and economic history
NK 4000 – 4010 Ottoman Empire
NK 4100 – 4110 History by region (1500 – 1918)
NK 4170 – 4195 Historical geography, ethnology, archaeology
NM 3350 – 4602 History by region and epoch (up to 1500)
Turkish Studies
EH 2100 – 2180 Introductions, grammar, dictionaries
EH 2410 – 2580 Pre-Islamic Ancient Turkish literature
EH 2600 – 2900 Central Asian Turkish literature in Islamic times
EH 3000 – 3200 Turkish in Turkey / Ottoman
EH 3300 – 3455 Turkish literature
EH 3500 – 5240 Individual authors and anonyms