By Aas Mohammed Kaif, TwoCircles.net
Uttar Pradesh: Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, the world-famous seminary is proud of its educational heritage since its inception. Its huge library plays an important role in attracting students and research scholars from all over the world. Dar-ul-Uloom is currently working on a project to digitize its colossal library containing rarest of the rare books and manuscripts with great zeal.
The man in charge of this overwhelming task is its librarian Maulana Shafique and his team of 13. They are going about their task with enthusiasm and passion. Even though they have no pressure of any deadline, they still realize the sheer enormity of their task which would leave an indelible mark in the pages of history and immortalize their names.
This prestigious library preserves Islamic History in the form of more than 2 lakhs books and around 1563 rare manuscripts including the Holy Quran written by the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb and a 750-year-old handwritten book on botany by Imammuddin Zakaria. The age of these historical manuscripts is between 500 to 800 years. Most of this treasure trove is bequeathed to Dar-ul-Uloom as a gift or ‘Hadiya’.
Dar-ul-Uloom has taken enormous care in preserving and curating these rare books and manuscripts with great seriousness till now.
The library has an enormous collection of books on Sufism. According to Maulana Shafique, the library houses hundreds of handwritten books on Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism). The latest amongst them being 300 years old. This vast collection of books was acquired during the last 150 years.
The library which was established in 1866 has more than 2 lakh books. Apart from this mammoth collection, there are about 40 thousand books which are part of the Seminary’s syllabus. The most precious collection of this library is those 1563 manuscripts which were handwritten in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit. Out of these about 300 manuscripts have become extremely frail and its contents began to be hazy and illegible which requires immediate curative measures to arrest its further deterioration. This situation caused a great deal of concern amongst the seminary’s officials and its Vice-Chancellor Maulana Abdul Khalique Madrasi who decided to take immediate initiative to conserve these priceless books and manuscripts.
Since the library houses ancient books in addition to 1563 manuscripts which included a letter from the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) addressed to the Egyptian King, a Quran written by the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb, another Quran written with golden ink, yet another one written completely on one page as well as handwritten copies of Towrah, Vedas, Geeta, Mahabharat and Ramayan and such other antique manuscripts of knowledge which are being conserved and curated by using modern technology.
According to Maulana Shafique, the scholars of Dar-ul-Uloom give utmost importance to conserve the treasure of knowledge of this seminary. He narrated the famous incident of the Late Shaikh-ul-Hadith Maulana Anzar Shah Kashmiri when he went to Egypt. He chanced upon a rare ancient book which he wanted to bring for the library. But the owner of the book declined to part with it. Maulana then borrowed this book for reading and he memorized the whole book in just one night. When he returned to India he re-wrote the book “Nurul Aza” which is part of the Seminary’s curriculum.
Maulana Shafiq considers the books as the treasure trove of knowledge. These books are an important source of research work. “We have research students from all over the world. Hence, we had to protect these books. For this, the ‘Mohtamim’ (Vice-Chancellor) Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi himself took me to the National Archives of India and got information from there,” he said, and added, “Later a team of three people attended a seminar organized on the same subject in Jammu. We contacted Iran Culture House in Delhi. The people of Iran Culture House were quite professional and knowledgeable. They agreed to cooperate and conserve the books and manuscripts by using the modern techniques but on a condition that they would retain a copy of each preserved book or manuscript as their fee. However, we did not accept their condition in this regard. Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi Sahab’s seriousness reached to the extent of a zeal. We collected all the technical knowledge to undertake this mammoth task all by ourselves by relying on Allah. We commenced our task during the lockdown.”
Maulana Shafique says that the books are related to a great number of subjects such as Unani Medicine, Biology, Jurisprudence, Law, History, Theology, Culture and Astronomy.
He adds that hundreds of books were never opened since centuries because of its delicate and infirm nature to save it from damage.
“There is a manuscript of the 24th Section of the Holy Quran written by the Moghul Emperor with golden ink. Specialists are conserving the manuscripts at a rate of about 150 to 200 pages a day. They are being scanned, laminated and digitized. A new library has been constructed at Darul Uloom. After its completion, the books will be shifted over there. So far 1 lakh pages have been saved. Preservation of 50 lakh pages is yet to be done,” he said.
About the digitization process, Maulana Shafiq, in charge of the library, explains that the boys first separate the pages of the manuscripts by inserting a serial number with a pencil and applying a paste of transparent glue, then laminated with a special tissue glass cloth and dried. These pages are then saved sequentially. It is scanned before binding and preserving digitally. Our conservation project includes books of every religion written in about 20 languages.
The 95 per cent of books found in the library were acquired as a gift.
Darul Uloom’s library has an annual budget of Rs 50 lakhs which is included in Darul Uloom’s total budget.
Sameer Chaudhary of Deoband says that very few in the world know that Darul Uloom has such a wealth of valuable books. “The whole world will have a big surprise once our digitization project is completed,” he adds.
As of now the National Archives of India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Iran have shown great interest in this project and offered help but according to sources, Darul Uloom does not want to accept any help in this regard.
Maulana Shafiq informs that earlier he was afraid to touch these ancient books as the paper was falling apart by a mere touch. Now, since the preservation process is being completed these books would come alive and benefit research scholars from around the world. After its digitization, these books would be safe to be handled for thousands of years.
The library which was built in 1907 would be considered among the most modern libraries of the country. A new library building is being built within Darul Uloom’s campus at a cost of Rs 20 crore. These digitally restored books would then be shifted in the new building.
There is a large stock of old books at the library. These include letters written by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to the Emperor of Egypt, Quran written by Aurangzeb’s hand, another one written with gold ink, yet another one completely written on one page as well as an amazing collection of books like Towrah, Vedas, Geeta, Mahabharata and Ramayana.