Ahwal Al-Ma’rifa – Special

Manuscripts inside the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque gain a distinguished status due to their link with the status of this mosque and because their topics, arts and sources vary greatly, as well as the rarity of many of these manuscripts.

Despite the importance and diversity of Al-Aqsa manuscripts, they have faced and still face many risks that led to the damage and loss of many of them through the ages. Between 1948-1967 AD, thousands of manuscripts, documents, books and Islamic antiquities in the city of Jerusalem in general, and the Al-Aqsa Library in particular, were looted by Israeli antiquities experts. They were moved to the warehouses of the Hebrew University, then to the Israeli National Archives in the town of Deir Yassin west of the city. Even the manuscript restoration center, which was opened in 2008 AD to preserve and maintain these treasures, has been subjected since its establishment to several Israeli attacks and a campaign of restrictions in an attempt to discourage it from fulfilling its noble mission in preserving the Islamic manuscript heritage.

Al-Aqsa Mosque Library

Our sources confirm that the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, which is considered one of the largest libraries in Palestine, includes the most important collection of manuscripts in the city of Jerusalem. The library is still standing and open today, and contains rare manuscripts and books. Valuable collections of manuscripts and books from several Jerusalem libraries were added to it, especially personal or family libraries. After adding these collections, the Al-Aqsa Library was supposed to contain approximately (6000) manuscripts, but now it contains only more than a thousand manuscripts, while the rest of the manuscripts were looted and robbed by the Zionist occupation.

Al-Aqsa manuscripts are considered among the most important Islamic manuscripts around the Islamic world for their scientific and cognitive diversity and for their historical link with Al-Aqsa. The manuscripts include the sciences of jurisprudence, Sharia, interpretation, Hadith and the sciences of the Quran, as well as mathematics, medicine, astronomy, sciences and the Arabic language.

Perhaps the oldest scientific manuscript in the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library is the book (Al-Mustasfa) in the science of the foundations of jurisprudence written by Hujjat al-Islam Abi Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505 AH). Also among the precious manuscripts in the library is the manuscript of the book (Al-Shihab in Wisdom, Sermons and Manners) by Al-Shihab Al-Quda'i (d. 454) which is in Prophetic manners, while the newest manuscript dates back to 1922 AD, which is the book (On the Foundations of Calligraphy) by its author Abd al-Salam bin Omar al-Husseini.

Manuscript Sources

These manuscripts are all written on paper (parchment or paper) and cover various topics. The sources of the library's holdings of manuscripts are:

- Manuscripts of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, which are limited in number, reaching (74) manuscripts.

- Manuscripts of Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khalili, a scholar of Jerusalem, (d. 1734 AD). His library contained more than seven thousand books, as mentioned in his endowment, including about (450) manuscripts. This library, including the manuscripts, was moved to the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library in the summer of 1978 AD. It is noted that this group suffers from erosion from termites and from moisture, which requires remedial maintenance.

- Manuscripts of Sheikh Khalil Al-Khalidi, a scholar of Jerusalem (d. 1941 AD). He is considered one of the few men who cared about manuscripts and collecting them. He traveled the Arab world in search of old manuscripts to view them and acquire what he could. His library was scattered after his death, and what survived from it does not exceed (150) manuscripts added in 1978 to the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library.

These are not all the manuscripts of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, but there are other manuscripts donated to the library from some libraries of Jerusalem families and other private libraries in Jerusalem, estimated at about a thousand manuscripts in cabinets in the form of wooden boxes, not registered in registers, and therefore they are not organized or indexed.

Attempts to save the manuscripts

It is known that the most decisive stage and the most dangerous stage for the manuscript is the final preservation stage, which requires providing the most suitable place to preserve the manuscript.

For this reason, the efforts made to care for Al-Aqsa manuscripts appear. All manuscripts in the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library have been sterilized and placed in special iron cabinets, based on the advice and recommendation of the Restoration, Manuscripts and Documents Department, which is one of the departments of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, which is considered like the hospital where the manuscript is treated, by restoring it, controlling its contents and binding it, then returning it to its natural place prepared specifically for it in the mother library. The main task of the specialized restorer in restoring the manuscript is to stop the infection that afflicted the manuscript, whether at the level of fungi or insect pests or bacteria, which must be eliminated and eradicated.

Yousef Al-Uzbeki, curator of old manuscripts and publications in Al-Aqsa Mosque, mentions that there is a Japanese expert from UNESCO who takes responsibility for (47) museums around the world who visited the library recently and recommended that all manuscripts be gathered in the mother library located in the Women's Mosque.

References

- City of Jerusalem website, February 9, 2015

- Masharef Maqdisiya Magazine, Issue 5, Spring 2016

- Al-Majalla Al-Arabiya, Saturday 4/6/2016