CAIRO, 5 June 2005 — The long-awaited online library of Al-Azhar, the oldest and highest Sunni institution in Egypt, (www. alazharonline.org) that aims to promote a moderate image of Islam by making Al-Azhar’s holdings of manuscripts available online is now accessible for those interested in knowing more about Islam.
The $5 million project is funded by Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashed Al-Maktoum, crown prince of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates’ defense minister. Maktoum showed his interest in the online library back in 2000 when he met with the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, who informed him about the condition of many of Al-Azhar’s priceless manuscripts which were in desperate need of restoration.
Maktoum, who also founded the Dubai Knowledge Village, approved the magnificent project that gives Internet users access to over 42,000 rare manuscripts with six million pages and 37, 000 Islamic books of Al-Azhar’s library. In addition to exact replicas of the manuscripts, some dating back 1,400 years, the website offers digital translations in a number of languages.
According to Abdullah Al-Karam, executive director of the Dubai Knowledge Village, the project is the largest of its kind in the world. “It is unique, both in terms of size, and in terms of the age of the documents being scanned, which involved the use of technology that had to be specially developed for the project,” he said. According to Al-Azhar officials the website was designed by the same leading company that has digitalized the US Congress and the Vatican libraries and Russia’s Hermitage Museum. “We wanted to make sure that the project and the website is as significant as the content itself,” said Tantawi. “We also tried to make the website as interesting as possible so it would attract a great number of readers to know more about the Islamic culture and true concepts and to show them how tolerant are the Islamic values and how false are the allegations against Islam,” Tantawi told Arab News.
