The report showed Sheikh Mohammed al Timimi with stacks of library books that he has stored in a Baghdad mosque—six truckloads of manuscripts, records, and books, including everything from centuries-old Islamic texts to handwritten Hebrew prayer books. The Journal described the trove as “a prime chunk” of the library's pre-war holdings of one million books and 20 million documents and said the fate of the materials was “now the subject of delicate negotiations between Shiite officials and the newly arrived U.S. Army team.”
The New York Times reported May 1 that John Limbert, senior adviser in the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, said he had learned that 90% of the library's books and documents had been removed for safekeeping. He added, however, that the Awqaf Islamic library and its 6,500 religious manuscripts perished. The Times said some 50,000 Islamic and Arab manuscripts dating back 14 centuries were saved from the Saddam Manuscripts Library because Usama Nasir al Naqshabandi, director general of manuscripts for the Ministry of Culture, had his entire collection removed to a safe place one week before the war began in March. He also took 150 boxes of books and catalogs from the library.
The extent of the losses—both from the library and the National Museum—and how and why the looting was permitted by the U.S military have become the subjects of fierce debate among Middle East scholars and librarians. The Library of Congress will join a State Department fact-finding mission to Iraq in the coming weeks to visit the National Library as well as university libraries, archives, and manuscript collections throughout the country and take stock of the situation. Expected to be formally announced May 5, the Iraq Museum and Library Initiative will also include representatives from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Posted May 5, 2003.