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Purpose: the present paper compares two reference books the Encyclopedia World of Islam & Encyclopedia of Islam– Leiden with regard to the whole process of compiling the encyclopedia, and to conduct an evaluative content analysis . Methodology: This is a comparative survey and a study of content analysis. The data collection tool in the comparative survey section is a questionnaire, and in the content analysis section it is the note taking method together with the Daricheh software package. The statistical population of this study consists of are ‏115 faculty members of the Islamic Encyclopedia Foundation together with all of the entries from these two reference books. The gathered data has been analyzed using SPSS software. Findings: The highest number of entries in both resources is related to geographical, historical, and language & literature topics. According to the T-test used in evaluating indexes/indicators of the procedures of compiling encyclopedias, in most cases indexes/indicators appear to be in an acceptable status/range i.e. all of the indexes/indicators in both resources have been addressed properly , but for the "author" index/indicator a middle or even very low status is observed in the Encyclopedia world of Islam. The status for the two indexes/indicators of "citation" and "edition" in the Encyclopedia world of Islam is higher than that in the Encyclopedia of Islam. Furthermore, the status of other indexes/ indicators including "entry", "author", "publication" and "compilation and translation" in the Encyclopedia of Islam is higher than in the Encyclopedia world of Islam. Originality/value: A aspects of the compilation process within encyclopedias from the same field are rarely evaluated and compared. The result is that some of the differences and similarities are undefined for the readers. The results of the present study could clarify some of the aspects for their readers and relevant organizations.