Report on the encyclopaedia of Islam

The second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (= EI2) was begun after World War II, when it was felt that a work originally conceived at the beginning of the century needed updating and in large measure rewriting. However, the new edition was to appear only in English and French instead of the English, French and German of the first one, and this has simplified production problems, although even now the delay in publication between the receipt of typescripts and actual publication is in considerable measure caused by the need to translate all material from English to French or vice-versa before articles can be IBM typed in Leiden as the first stage in printing. Of the editorial committee of the early 1950s, Gibb, Kramers, Levi-Provencal and Schacht, none now remains alive, and the present editors comprise C.E.Bosworth (University of Manchester), E.van Donzel (Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden), B.Lewis (Princeton University) and Ch.Pellat (University of Paris, Sorbonne). An executive committee, whose role is in fact an honorary rather than an active one, comprises prominent Western orientalists together with a number of associate members from the Islamic lands themselves. As with the first edition, Messrs E.J.Brill of Leiden supply the central secretarial service and act as publishers and printers

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