For many disciplines within the field of Arabic studies major reference tools exist. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, especially useful for historical matters, with an emphasis on persons and places, has now embarked on its third edition. The Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān covers the entire domain of Qurʾānic studies and has only one more volume to go to completion. For Arabic literature there is the Encyclopedia of Arabic literature, as well as the Cambridge history of Arabic literature. For written production in Classical Arabic Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Literatur has been…