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== History ==
The site of the [[Royal Dramatic College]] was purchased by Leitner in the spring of 1884. He immediately went about turning it into his idea of an Oriental Institute, decorating the interior with objects he had collected on his travels. Part of the building was turned into an Oriental Museum, said to have housed the most interesting collection of artefacts from the east in Britain, and it also contained an art collection.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/gottlieb-leitner|title=Gottlieb Leitner|last=|first=|date=|website=The Open University|publisher=|access-date=26 December 2016}}</ref> The Institute remained relatively obscure locally, with Leitner once remarking that "There is no place in the world where the Institute and its publications are less known than in Surrey."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.wokingmuslim.org/pers/dr_leitner.htm|title=Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner|last=|first=|date=|website=Woking Muslim Mission|publisher=|access-date=18 December 2016}}</ref> In 1889, the [[Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking|Shah Jahan Mosque]] was founded, with funding from [[Sultan Shah Jahan, Begum of Bhopal]], as a place for Muslim students of the Institute to worship when they were in Woking.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/subjects/diversity/shah_jahan_mosque_woking/|title=Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking|last=|first=|date=|website=Exploring Surrey's Past|publisher=|access-date=26 December 2016}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE|num=1264438|desc=Shah Jehan Mosque, Oriental Road|grade=I|access-date=12 March 2018}}</ref>
It was hoped the Institute would achieve full university status, and by the 1890s it was awarding degrees accredited by the [[University of the Punjab]] in [[Lahore]]. Leitner intended it to be the academic centre for studies in this field - a role which was later taken on by the [[University of London]]'s [[SOAS, University of London|School of Oriental and African Studies]], founded in 1916. Leitner began publishing six academic journals at the Institute, in Sanskrit, Arabic, English and Urdu. They included ''Sanskrit Quarterly Review'', ''Al-Haqa’iq: an Arabic Quarterly Review'' and ''The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review''. In a letter to ''[[The Times]]'', G. R. Badenoch described a visit to the Institute, and wrote that he "considered that India is greatly indebted to Dr. Leitner" for the vast collection maintained at the Institute.<ref name=":0" /> One professor at the Institute was [[Francis Joseph Steingass]], who taught modern languages.<ref>{{cite ODNB |last= Hakala |first= Walter N. |date= 10 September 2020 |title= Steingass, Francis Joseph (1825–1902) |doi= 10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.100747 }}</ref>
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