We now have confirmation that the largest Iraqi MSS collection, in what
was known as the Saddam Manuscripts Library in Baghdad, is safe. It
contains more than 40,000 Arabic, Turkish, Persian & Kurdish MSS,
including the collections formerly in the Iraq Museum as well as many
other private and mosque collections. All of them
were packed and transferred to safekeeping last winter, in anticipation
of hostilities. We know this from two highly authoritative sources:-
1. The Director of the Library, Usama Nasir al-Naqshabandi, in a
satellite phone converstion with a colleague in the Orient-Institut,
Beirut (many thanks to Wolf-Dieter Lemke for this information).
2. The Director of Research at the Iraq Museum, Donny George, at a press
conference in the British Museum
in London yesterday, which I attended. This was in response to a direct
question about the Saddam MSS Library, for which the Iraq Museum is
still ultimately responsible.
At the same time, there have been press reports that significant parts
of the collections in the National Library and archives were also saved
from the fire and looting. Early newspapers and Ottoman cadastral
registers are reported to have been transferred to safe storage in
March. But we do not know the extent of the losses to the main printed
book collections.
Geoffrey Roper
Islamic Bibliography Unit
Cambridge University Library
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