One for the digital diggers here; someone’s just brought our attention to the Qatar Digital Library, and the thousand or so hours of material they’ve uploaded for free access via Soundcloud.
Qatar Digital Library (QDL) is an ever-growing resource featuring the cultural and historical heritage of the Gulf and wider region freely available online for the first time. Part of a ten-year partnership between Qatar Foundation, the Qatar National Library and The British Library, the QDL features maps, manuscripts, photographs and loads more which has been digitised and uploaded since 2012.
For those interested in the overall project you can watch a short-film about it here.
One of the most interesting areas for us are the sound recordings, which are currently pulled together on Soundcloud as a collection of roughly three hundred clips, with many more to come. The 
QDL itself is actually quite difficult to navigate solely by sound recordings, as often they’re embedded in to larger articles, which is why the Soundcloud account is perfect.
and-hot-music-baghdad-iraqi-maqam-music-and-chalgi-ensembles”>http://www.qdl.qa/en/dusty-streets-and-hot-music-baghdad-iraqi-maqam-music-and-chalgi-ensembles
Or, you could turn up 64,000 results of unrelated material as I did on one particular search. But to be honest that’s part of the fun.
A few random bits and pieces below, and check the full extent of uploaded tracks to date here: https://soundcloud.com/qatar-digital-library