Arabic, Persian, Urdu & Islamic Studies

Gurudev had a broad vision of the cultural unity of the Asian countries which he expressed at several occasions during his visit to Iraq and Iran. The idea of giving shape and form of such centre of learning of Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Islamic Studies was conceived and materialized by Tagore himself in the year 1927 with generous donation of Rupees One lakh by the then Nizam of Hyderabad. The Dept. has a broad vision to evolve the Dept. into a selfaccomplished centre of Indo-West Asian studies where not only the comparative studies may be conducted but also an all-out research work may be carried out to explore and analyse the folkloric literature of Bengal as well as those of Persian world like Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Dept. since its inception has tried its best to achieve the objectives and published a good number of highly recommendable research works. The Dept. is also planning to start
Refresher course in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Islamic Studies as well as Arabic at UG and then PG level. With the introduction of the courses, the Dept. will be in a better position to achieve the cherished goal of Gurudev.