The increasing interest in Islam and Islamic culture during the last century and the early part of this century created a demand for an encyclopaedic work on Islam. For the first time in history a truly international team of scholars began working on one single project. This resulted in The Encyclopaedia of Islam , published in three editions in English, German and French. The Encyclopaedia of Islam remains to this day the only complete encyclopaedic work on Islam. Due to its tremendous success these editions soon went out of print and became valuable collectors' items. Some years later, the publisher decided to start a New Edition, which is now well over halfway to completion. In view of the broad scope of the New Edition and the years needed to complete it, E.J. Brill's First Edition is now available to meet the immediate needs of scholars, students of Islam, librarians, and even government institutions, in fact, anyone interested in Islam and its rich culture. The First Edition is a true mine of information, much of which is not yet available in the New Edition. The value of the First Edition (as well as the New Edition) is recognized worldwide and remains undisputed. In more than 9,000 alphabetically arranged articles, varying in length from 50 to 50,000 words, the whole range of Islamic culture, from religion and literature to the lives of famous Muslims, is treated by some of the world's most famous scholars of the twentieth century. The First Encyclopaedia of Islam was originally published between 1913 and 1936 as The Encyclopaedia of Islam: A Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples in four volumes and one supplement volume.