Al Azhar's library to get wired up to the Internet

Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, the 1,000-year-old mosque-university of Al Azhar, is planning to take its library online. The institution houses 44,000 manuscripts, 9,000 of which are the only copies in existence and have never been put on display before. The project "will make available the biggest library of (Islamic) manuscripts in the world," said Al Azhar's Sheikh Mahmoud Ashur in the March 5 edition of the government daily Al Akhbar. The manuscripts are works on Muslim tradition, jurisprudence and interpretation of the Koran, the Muslim holy book. The paper went on to add that the project is funded by a grant of $5 million from the emir of Dubai, Sheikh Maktoum Bin Rashed. Al Azhar was built in AD 972, on the orders of Gohar Al Siquilli, commander of the army which conquered Egypt in the name of the Fatimid caliph Al Muiz.

Source: The Middle East Times, Cairo, March 9, 2001