AZ-ZAHIRIYAH LIBRARY
How to get here:
Located to the North-West of the Umawi Musjid, the library is a few minutes’ walk away in Zuqaaq Malik Thahir alleyway.
- The Az-Zahiriyah library is a historic library and madrassa built in 1277 and which takes its name from Sultan al-Zahir Baybars (1223–1277) who is buried there.
The madrassah had a library from the outset but was only turned into a “general library” in 1876 by Sheikh Tahir al-Jazari and Salim al-Bukhari, who collected thousands of items for the library. - The library was nationally recognized by the Syrian state and opened to the public in 1880 or 1881.[12] It continued to consolidate collections throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century and became the National Library.
- In 1919 the Arab Academy was charged with the supervision of the Library. Its collection consisted at that time of the surviving manuscripts from different small libraries in Syria. The collection grew from 2,465 manuscripts to 22,000 volumes between 1919 and 1945.
The manuscript department includes over 13,000 classical Islamic manuscripts, the oldest being Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Kitab al-zuhd and Kitab al-fada’il.
As of 2011, the library’s holdings included some 100,000 holdings, 13,000 manuscripts, and 50,000 periodicals.
