Throughout my diplomatic and cultural career, I got to know major cities, cultures, languages and personalities, and in all my travels, tours and movements from one place to another and from one responsibility to another, the book remained the companion that does not leave me. Whenever I visit a country, I think about reading its most important books and visiting its libraries. Since my youth, the book has become an obsession, and I have only entered the door of writing as a reader. I was trained for a long time to read, and with this training I had to live with books, collect what I liked from them, and search for the wisdom of the transients of the ancestors of humanity who left us a legacy in all literature and arts, after I realized at the beginning of my youth that the preservation of books by kings and sultans in ancient civilizations in the vaults is a sign that the book exceeds precious metals in value and impact.

Dr. Al-Kuwari: In all my travels, tours and travels, the book remained the companion that does not leave me (Al-Sharq newspaper)

QNL President Delivers Speech at Book Launch Ceremony FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022"
(Al Jazeera)

The library is not a bookcase

Sources of wisdom were hidden in vaults and not displayed in libraries. I remembered how the King of India Dabashlim hid the book "Kalila and Dimna", which was classified by the philosopher Bidba in the etiquette of governance and conducted on the tongue of animals, and how the King of the Persians Khosrau Anusherwan hurried in his request by assigning the doctor Barzoih to travel to India and take out the hidden book and translate it to be his wisdom in the hands of the Persians, and how Barzoih succeeded in his mission and ended up hiding the book in the treasury of the King of the Persians, as if wisdom was destined to be thrown into the darkness of the safes. I thought long about the symbolism of that. I learned more about the experiences of nations in dealing with the book, and looked with pride at what the Arabs had taken in this way.

The Book of Kalila and Dimna in its original form (Al-Jazeera)

The library of the House of Wisdom was a bright mark in our history, almost certainly an "epic" of heroes who believed that knowledge is a constant struggle against the darkness of ignorance. I was wondering: what would have happened to the Arabs if the Abbasids had not created this edifice, which was not just a library, a bookcase, and a translation center? The library of the House of Wisdom was a center of cultural radiation, and a bridge of dialogue between Arab-Islamic culture and other cultures, and without it, the Arabs would not have been able to progress in obtaining knowledge and science, as they struck at that time the highest meanings of cultural exchange and acceptance of the intellectual other, hundreds of years before raising the slogans of "modernity" today, and international trends.

Drawing by students of a library in the House of Wisdom inspired by the Maqamat al-Hariri by the painter Yahya al-Wasiti (Source: Zereshk)

Imaginary Drawing of the House of Wisdom (Source 1001 Inventions)

In that Abbasid era, it materialized like a civilized dialogue, and Baghdad became like a rose that spreads its sweet smell throughout the world, just as the Europeans later became the city of Florence, which endowed Europe with the smell of the Renaissance. The radiation of the House of Wisdom has reached Andalusia, and the Arab writers and newsmen in describing what was abounding in it, it was said by Al-Qalqalshandi in his book (Subh Al-Asha in the construction industry): "There were countless books in it, and it is not based on preciousness, and it was still on it until the Tatars raided Baghdad, and their king Hulagu Al-Musta'sim killed the last of their successors in Baghdad, so the bookcase went as it went and its features went, and its effects were exempted." Al-Qalqalshandi pointed out that the "House of Wisdom" is the first government book house in Islamic civilization, and it is one of 3 houses that influenced the course of Arab-Islamic culture, along with the treasury of the Fatimid caliphs in Egypt and the treasury of the caliphs of the Umayyads in Andalusia.

House of Wisdom in Rusafa side of the Iraqi capital (Al-Jazeera)

The Fatimid bookcase has 40 sections, including a section containing 18,<> books on ancient sciences (social media)

I have referred in my book "As much as the people of determination" to the great advantage of Al-Mamoun when he turned the "bookcase" established by Al-Mansour into the "House of Wisdom", as the treasury is not only a repository of books, while the house assumes the presence of inhabitants in it, that is, vitality and activity flow in it, including what was known as "House of Wisdom" of the activity of scholars of different races and languages in a sign to embrace the dialogue of civilizations between the Arab-Islamic civilization and the Indian, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and other civilizations.

Harun al-Rashid ordered the establishment of a "House of Wisdom" outside the palace walls to open the doors to every student (Al-Jazeera)

Britain's King Edward IV receives the first translated book on an Arabic work with philosophy and wisdom (Al Jazeera)

When Doha was the capital of Arab culture in 2010, I was keen to make the inaugural presentation about the "House of Wisdom" because I believe in and expect that Doha is the capital of knowledge and the significance of the House of Wisdom, and this we see today evident in our capital of interest in culture and Qatar's approach to shedding light on this dimension.

In the Fatimid era, the Arabs witnessed the establishment of the Fatimid Library, so they saw it as a wonder of the wonders of the world, so it contained thousands of books of all sciences, and of the facts that remained associated with it, in a sign of the precious things it contained, that the scientist Abu al-Salt Umayyah bin Abdul Aziz al-Ishbili (1067-1134 AD), who came to Egypt and lived in it for 20 years, close to the virtuous vizier Shahanshah bin Badr al-Din al-Jamali, during the reign of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah, and because of the slander of one of the footnotes of Al-Fadil, he was imprisoned for 3 years In the library, he began to draw from its knowledge and studied its manuscripts, so he came out of it and became one of the scholars and after he wrote his book "The Garden" in the style of "The Orphan of the Age" by Thaalbi.

In the Fatimid era, the Arabs witnessed the establishment of the Fatimid Library, and they saw it as one of the wonders of the world (Al-Jazeera).

The scientist Abi Al-Salt Al-Ishbili was imprisoned for 3 years in the library and came out and became one of the scholars and wrote the book "The Garden" (Al-Jazeera)

Interest in libraries in Andalusia continued, especially during the era of Bani Umayyah, so Al-Hakam Al-Mustansir (915-976 AD), the second caliph of Andalusia, collected 400 thousand volumes, and collected in his house craftsmen from the people of copying, paper and binding workmanship, and sent his men in search of precious manuscripts in Islamic culture centers, so they bought books from writers and published them in Andalusia before they appeared in Iraq, the Levant or Egypt.

Andalusians in general followed the same path as their rulers in appreciating the status of writers and libraries in public life. The establishment of libraries was the result of the scientific, literary and intellectual movement experienced by the Andalusian environment, as the activity of libraries is a reflection of the movement in Andalusian cultural life, and they contribute to the promotion of the contents of that life, just as they contributed to the development of the movement of writing books and all neighboring crafts.

Andalusians followed the path of their rulers from appreciating the status of writers and libraries (social media)

The libraries in Andalusia varied in a society where reading was common among all classes, so libraries attached to mosques, public libraries, palace libraries, and libraries of notables and notables were common. When we examine the cultural sophistication of Andalusians, we cannot isolate it from the reality of libraries at the time, as the library was not a secondary element in the life of Andalusians, but part of their daily lives, so that the book market in Cordoba depends on "auction", as the book is a valuable commodity broadcast in the economy of Andalusian society, which was touched by Yaqut Al-Hamawi (1178-1229) by saying, "Books were called auctions."

The library was so part of Andalusian daily life that the book market in Córdoba relies on "auctions" (social media).

But the history of Arab libraries was not spared from tragedies, just as the Arab-Islamic civilizational thought was not spared from attempts to exclude it from its pioneering role in human culture, as that history witnessed in different periods and by internal and external hands burning and demolition of libraries, so the library of the House of Wisdom was demolished by the Mongols in 1258 AD, who threw books into the Tigris River, and the fire prolonged Ibn Rushd's books in Andalusia, as libraries were demolished, which made Polystron confess honestly in his interesting book (Books burning.. History Demolition of libraries): "Córdoba lived in the tenth century the most terrifying experience of burning libraries in the entire Middle Ages."

The library of the House of Wisdom was demolished by the Mongols in 1258 and they threw books into the Tigris River (social media)

The facts of the demolition and burning of libraries throughout history reflect to us the importance that libraries represent in the creation of societies and in preserving their past and expressing their present, which prompted the enemies of life and knowledge to demolish and burn, because the library constitutes the legal entity of the wealth of a nation. Libraries have long been associated with this fundamental idea: they offer humanity only the progress of their knowledge.

The library is a journey of knowledge

The library is a source of knowledge, and even its fortified fortress, as it gives the reader and researcher in general the ability to access paper or digital sources of knowledge, and often feel safe in them, because it is a tangible expression of the key word "read" that endowed our civilization with the motivation to exist, making the life of societies connected to knowledge, and also expressed the basic condition for progress and civilizational construction.

I've always thought about the exciting connection between library and discovery, living in a library is like accepting adventure by meeting people you don't know, and accepting to host someone else. Therefore, I decided to have my library as part of my personal council, so that discussion and reflection sessions would be between the council's pioneers in the book environment, and acquaintance between everyone would be a kind of evoking the goal of reading and collecting books, which is to discover knowledge that man has paid a high price for throughout his history.

HBKU Students Visit His Excellency Dr. Hamad Al-Kuwari at His Library (Qatar Press)

Living in a library is like meeting those you don't know and accepting to host different people (social media)

The novel "The Name of the Rose" by the Italian writer Umberto Eco has long recalled the poisoning of monks in a monastery while browsing Aristotle's book, where the medieval church symbolically punishes anyone who is tempted to see knowledge that opposes its views and opens minds at the time.

The novel "The Name of the Rose" by the Italian writer "Umberto Eco" (social media)

In a monastery, monks copy theological books, and if any of them thinks of reading philosophy in the monastery library secretly, he faces the fate of death poisoned, after the chief monk copied the book with poisoned ink. I found in the trick used by Echo to build the events of his novel and reach his destination something similar to that on the fifth night of the book "One Thousand and One Nights" when the king was cured by the sage after his fall, so the king brought him closer to him, which provoked the hatred of his minister, so his heart was overwhelmed by the sage, which prompted the king to declare his desire to get rid of the sage, so he informed him that he would execute him, and if the wise asked to go to his house before the execution to bring a book to give him, and as soon as he returned with the book, the king began to browse it, and he was His finger softens its luster and leaves the pages until he dies poisoned. Along the course of my intellectual career, I have realized that the world of books and the library is one of the worlds that build human humanity, and therefore the enemies of civilizational interaction between nations fear it.

In an extrapolation of the history of Western libraries and the impact of the library in building their renaissance, I returned to remember what the Italian writer Petrarch (1304-1374), who founded the group of humanists in the Renaissance, returned to classical literature despite the position of his contemporaries on it, and made trips and contacts to obtain manuscripts, so he became a hunter for them, and relied on himself in their investigation and study, as he believed that it was meaningless to collect books without benefiting the collector.

Italian writer Petrarch (1304-1374) who founded the Renaissance Humanist Community (Getty Images)

He was passionate about books, so he established a great private library, and made guards on it, so that he found his passion for the book dead on the ground with an open book next to it. The "humanists" after him continued the process of collecting classical Latin manuscripts and discovering the relics left behind after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, driven by a thirst for knowledge. I was reliving that era with its enthusiasm to capture manuscripts with the imagination of those who follow man's adventure in acquiring knowledge.

Petrarch's obsession with Arab Muslims was not just collecting and collecting books, but libraries were edifices of common human ideals and values as well. Libraries are incubators of all human values that call for coexistence, rapprochement of cultures and civilizations and respect for identities and the other in general. To the extent that it encourages knowledge and openness to others, it invites creativity with knowledge that is not taken merely for the sake of demonstrating information. Whenever I regain these lofty meanings of what libraries give to man, I wonder about the fate of libraries in the network age, will libraries continue in their previous roles or are they moving today in an unknown direction?

Next article: Libraries in the Digital Age