The Centre for West Asian Studies was established in July 2004 and formally inaugurated by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, on 29 January 2005. It is part of the institution founded under a programme of the research and development initiated by the Jamia Millia Islamia, one of the oldest educational foundations in India, and a university steeped in secular values and ideas. The scope of the studies includes all the countries giving on the Persian Gulf, countries in Mashreq and Meghreb, and Turkey, which fall in India’s proximate and extended neighborhood. India has always had multifaceted relations with peoples of the region.

The Centre seeks to foster interdisciplinary academic pursuit of West Asia and promote research on the region, its people and its relations with India. It aims to provide a forum for informed exchange of ideas among students, faculty, and scholars from outside, and serve as a niche for public policy studies. It equally aims to generate and provide resources through which, the interested and expert alike, can understand a region which has close and historic cultural, economic and religious links with India. It also seeks to promote an Indian perspective on developments in the region, especially those which equally impinge on global peace, security and development.

The Centre admits students in MPhil and PhD programmes for two and five years, respectively.The educational objective of the Centre is to impart specialist knowledge of the region to its students, in order to enable them to pursue careers in research and teaching, journalism, business, government and non-governmental organisations, and others.