Cataloging is complete for 926 items from the Ordre Basilien Choueirite (OBC), a Melkite Greek Catholic monastic order based in Khinshārah, Lebanon. The vast majority of the collection is in Arabic, but it includes a few items in other languages such as French, Latin, English, Syriac, and Ottoman Turkish. There are more than 50 liturgical and other items in Greek, including dozens of examples of Greek written in Arabic script, testifying to the ubiquity of this phenomenon among the Melkite communities of the Middle East.

In addition to liturgical texts, the collection includes significant numbers of theological, devotional, philosophical, and grammatical works, particularly works composed or translated by Catholics in the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some basic textbooks on topics important to the monks, such as the theological compendium of Jean Claude de la Poype de Vertrieu (1655-1732) or the Ladder of divine ascent by John Climacus (6th century), occur in dozens of copies, including one rare Egyptian recension of the Ladder copied in 1322 (OBC 00783). Other texts are unique copies, such as Ḍiyāʼ al-nafs (OBC 00706), whose author Alejandro de la Madre de Dios (1656-1708) has now been identified for the first time. Many of the manuscripts come from the personal collection of ʻAbd Allāh Zākhir (1684-1748), who worked to establish one of the most important Christian Arabic printing presses at this monastery in the early 18th century.

While the bulk of the collection is Christian, some of the rarest and oldest items in the library have an Islamic origin. This includes a text on dream interpretation bearing the incredibly early date of 923 CE (OBC 00384) and a theological work copied in 1196 (OBC 00454). Another interesting Islamic item is the Ottoman Turkish divan (collected poetry) of Fıtnat Hanım (died 1780), one of the few published female poets of the Ottoman Empire (OBC 00474). View now