"Few projects in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies deserve the adjective 'monumental' more than the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Currently in its third edition, the Encyclopaedia has become one of the core reference works for generations of scholars. . . . Bearman's book fills in a major gap in the history of the discipline of Islamic Studies in general and the history of the reference works and scholarly practices that contributed to its emergence as an increasingly coherent discipline. While it is quite obvious that reference works, like any other text, have their own agendas and blind spots, Bearman's detailed study demonstrate how these agendas have been at play over a century in the production of the Encyclopaedia. Finally, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam is an ongoing project (currently in its third edition), Bearman's History will be of interest to new and seasoned editors, contributors, and readers of the Encyclopaedia. Moreover, since the Encyclopaedia is a multigenerational project and a product of multiple editorial boards, Bearman's insightful study can inform a better, more careful use of the Encyclopaedia." --Guy Burak, (New York University), MELA Notes

Peri Bearman, who retired as associate director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, is widely known as an editor of major works of scholarship on the Islamic Near East. She was senior acquisitions editor for Islamic Studies at Brill Academic Publishers from 1990 to 1997; an editor of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam from 1999 to its completion in 2006; and is currently associate editor for the Islamic Near East for both the journal (JAOS) and the monograph series of the American Oriental Society. She is co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law (Ashgate, 2014), of The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari'a (Tauris, 2008), and of The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress (Harvard Law School, 2005).

List of Figures
Series Editors' Preface
Preface
Abbreviations
Chapter One The First Editions
1. The Planning Stage, 1892-1899
2. The International Association of Academies
3. The Preparatory Stage, 1901-1908
4. The Thirds Stage, Snouck and Houtsma, 1909-1924
5. Weisinck Successed, 1924-1939
Chapter Two. The Second Edition
1. Constancy, 1948-1956
2. Under New Management, 1957-1997
3. Ascendancy of the Corporate Dollar, 1997-2006
Chapter Three. The Publisher and the Process
1.  A Brief History of E. J. Brill
2. Production process
Chapter Four. European Trials: Politics and Scholarship
Conclusion
Appendix One. Entries in the Spécimen d’une enclycopédie musulmane, 1898
Appendix Two. Translation of Max Seligsohn's Critique of the First Edition, 1909
Appendix Three. Supplementary Publications
Bibliography
Index