NEWS POST: World's Oldest Library In Morocco Opens

Library remain at the ancient complex

Fatima Al-Fihri, the founder of the worlds oldest library, challenged stereotypes and misconceptions that women were not influential in creating keystone heritage sites and centers for learning in Muslim civilization.

Founded by a Muslim woman, the University of Al Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, opened its doors in 859. More than 1,100 years later a second woman, Canadian-Moroccan architect Aziza Chaouni finished a three year restoration project in which the premises are now open to the public.

Fatima Al-Fihri was the daughter of a wealthy businessman who was born during the “Golden Age of Islam,” a five hundred year period where economic and cultural works flourished under Islamic leadership. Al-Fihri used her inheritance to establish a center of religious and secular teaching that eventually became a full-fledged university.

Known to be a woman who loved knowledge and curious about the world, al-Fihri oversaw the construction of the mosque, and until her later years, attended lectures by reputed scholars who travelled to teach at the mosque school. It was in this manner that in the tenth century  expanded to be a university

The library houses a collection of manuscripts written by renowned thinkers from the region, including Ibn Khaldun's Muqadimmah.

The 14th-century historical work spent six months on loan to the Louvre Museum in Paris during the renovations, library curator Abdelfattah Bougchouf said.

It is still considered a leading religious and education institution in the Muslim world. Today, the University of Al Qarawiyyin has relocated to another part of Fez, but the mosque and the library remain at the ancient complex.

Chaouni, originally from Fez, says she had not heard of the library before she was requested by the Moroccan Culture Ministry in 2012 to lead the restoration, which suffered from the climate and humidity over the years. “Throughout the years, the library underwent many rehabilitations, but it still suffered from major structural problems, a lack of insulation, and infrastructural deficiencies like a blocked drainage system, broken tiles, cracked wood beams, exposed electric wires, and so on,” says Chaouni on TED.com.

Main reading hall at the Library

Ancient Texts

The library houses a collection of 4,000 rare books and ancient Arabic manuscripts written by renowned scholars of the region .Other texts in the library include a 9th-century Quran written in Kufic calligraphy, and a manuscript on the Maliki School of Islamic jurisprudence by Ibn Rochd, also known as Averroes.

The manuscripts are now kept in a secure room, with strict temperature and humidity control. They weren't always kept like this, however.

"The original manuscript room door had four locks," Bougchouf told The Associated Press. 

"Each of those keys was kept with four different people. In order to open the manuscript room, all four of those people had to physically be there to open the door."

Now, he chuckled, "all of that has been replaced with a four-digit security code."

Source: QZ/Global Citizen/World Bulletin