The Royal Asiatic Society, founded in 1823, was the main centre in Britain for scholarly work on Asia in the nineteenth century, and has been a publisher since 1829.

The Muslim World 1100–1700: Early Sources on Middle East History, Geography and Travel is the second collection of RAS Classics reissued by Routledge in association with the Society. The first, the five-volume Theology, Ethics and Metaphysics (978-0700-71670-8), was published in February 2003.