QDL comprises one of the largest online collections of historic records on the Persian Gulf countries.

[3] The partnership sought to digitize a rich trove of heritage material documenting Arab and Islamic history and to make it freely accessible to the public through the QDL, which was launched online in October 2014.

Some 475,000 pages, dating from the mid 18th century to 1951, are from the India Office Records and Private Papers (including the archives of the East India Company and its successor institutions); and 25,000 pages are of medieval and modern Arabic and English manuscripts.

[8][9] The British Library’s collection contains over 500 Arabic scientific manuscripts, of which 205 were digitalised in the first two phases of the project.

[11][12] The first phase included manuscripts from Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Aristotle, as well as Theodosius of Bithynia.