One of the most fascinating exhibits is a battered and stained 13th-century text that survived the ransacking of Baghdad in 1258 by Mongol general Hulegu, Genghis Khan’s grandson, which left 800,000 people dead. The library is tucked into one corner of the vast and beautiful mosque complex which houses the shrine of Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, an 11th-century Persian scholar who lived most of his adult life in Baghdad and was the founder of the al-Qadiriyya Sufi order.
Librarian Abdulsalem Abdulkareem estimates the library holds between 80,000 and 85,000 books (MEE/Tom Westcott) “Many experts of calligraphy and signs and symbols come here to study this book, but these pictures are very mysterious and no-one fully understands their significance.” “At the end of each Ayah (verse) is a unique design – a flower, a six-pointed star or a bowl of fruit, many different images – throughout the whole book, the like of which is not to be seen elsewhere,” he explains. – Abdulsalem Abdulkareem, librarian, al-Qadiriyya When the Mongols came here in 1258, they burned the libraries and threw so many books into the River Tigris that the water ran black from the ink Several hundred years old, the book was a gift from the mother of a Turkish Sultan named Abdul Aziz. “Here we have something very special and the only one of its kind,” says Abdulkareem, revealing another Quran, its intricately patterned borders entwined with colourful flowers, and richly embellished with gold leaf.
A hand-written and decorated Quran given to the library by the mother of Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz (MEE/Tom Westcott) Many of these are richly decorated copies of the Quran, such as a two-volume hand-written edition, the pages of which are almost a metre long, gifted to the library from the Taj Mahal by an Indian prince several hundred years ago. BAGHDAD – Librarian Abdulsalem Abdulkareem moves softly between the bookshelves of the al-Qadiriyya library, sliding silky fabric covers from glass exhibition cases to proudly reveal some of the collection’s most beautiful historic tomes.
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