Catalog of Arabic, Turkish and Persian Manuscripts in the Sulaymaniyah Library

Catalog of Arabic, Turkish and Persian Manuscripts

In the Sulaymaniyah library

Our ancestors left us a heritage that we could not count let alone enumerate, and their manuscripts spread in the libraries of the world from the bottom to the top, and people took care of these precious things and acquired them, and they passed them down from generation to generation, and private libraries began to appear in homes, and then public libraries.

And when the era of printing began… the importance of these manuscripts emerged, and work began diligently to index them, and it is surprising that many of the treasures of heritage leaked to Western and other international libraries.

Among the most important of these libraries is the Sulaymaniyah Library attributed to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the greatest of the Ottoman Empire’s sultans. It is no secret to those with sound insights and straight minds: that cataloging heritage is the key to its closed doors, and the beginning of facilitating its absolute difficulties.

The work of this index required effort, time and hard work. May God reward the best who did it. Work began by relying on the Hamidi notebook of the Sulaymaniyah manuscripts; This is because this number is adopted in the Sulaymaniyah library in general, old and new.

In order to facilitate the matter for researchers, an electronic index has been developed that contains general information about each manuscript, and pictures of the beginnings and ends of the manuscripts, and the artistic paintings in them, and this is an unprecedented work thanks to God and his end.

An alphabetical index was placed with the names of the manuscripts, and another with the names of the authors; This is to make searching for the manuscript an easy matter to the greatest extent.

Despite all this, the author of the index has controlled the names of the authors and their fathers, the translation for many of them, and the commentary on many matters for the benefit of the people. Kaltanoih on other copies of the manuscript, and alert whether this book was printed.

He referred to the slandered books, and the manuscripts attributed by the people of heresy and deviation to non-authors, in addition to mentioning important manuscripts; Especially if it was in the handwriting of its author, or a recent one in terms of the date of its copying.

Indeed, this index is more like a studied composition, in addition to the indexing of manuscripts that it contains. We ask God that these precious things come out to see the light, for He is the Forgiving righteousness.