Cataloging is complete for 785 mostly Arabic-script manuscripts from the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Nacionalna i univerzitetska biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine, project code NUB). Much of the collection was destroyed when the library was shelled during the Siege of Sarajevo in 1992, but hundreds of manuscripts were saved through the heroic efforts of the librarians.

The languages best represented in the collection are Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, but there is a significant amount of Persian as well; other languages appear in Cyrillic, Roman, and Hebrew scripts. The collection also includes 37 manuscripts at least partially written in the Bosnian language, whether in Arabic, Cyrillic, or Roman script. This is a rich testimony to the development of vernacular literature in the Ottoman Balkans, and the collection as a whole witnesses to the early modern devotional, literary, and scholarly life of this region. The oldest dated manuscript in the collection was copied in Urūmīyah (Iran) in 1337 CE (NUB 00467), while the latest is a Bosnian poem copied in Sarajevo in 1950 CE (NUB 00650). Further cataloging of the remaining portions of the collection, generally in Cyrillic and Roman scripts, is ongoing. View now