very impressive source! thank you for the information..
don spicehandler
systems librarian
school of visual arts, nyc
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*this is a personal message and does NOT necessarily represent the views of my
employer*
Barbara Prior wrote:
> This just in.
>
> Barbara
>
> from
> <http://www.arabnews.com/print.asp?id=25219&ArY=2003&ArM=4&ArD=15>
>
> Arab News
> SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Islamic Library Burned to the Ground
> Robert Fisk, The Independent
> Published on Tuesday, April 15, 2003
>
> BAGHDAD, 15 April 2003 ? So yesterday was the burning of books. First came
> the looters, then came the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sack
> of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives ? a priceless treasure of
> Ottoman historical documents including the old royal archives of Iraq ?
> were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the Islamic Library of
> Qur?ans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze. I saw the
> looters.
>
> One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a
> boy who could have been no more than 10 years old. Amid the ashes of
> hundreds of years of Iraqi history, I found just one file blowing in the
> wind outside: Pages and pages of handwritten letters between the court of
> Sherif Hussein of Makkah ? who started the Arab revolt against the Turks
> for Lawrence of Arabia ? and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.
>
> And the Americans did nothing. All over the filthy yard they blew, letters
> of recommendation to the courts of Arabia, demands for ammunition for
> Ottoman troops, reports on the theft of camels and attacks on pilgrims, all
> of them in delicate hand-written Arabic script. I was holding in my hands
> the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq?s written history. But for Iraq, this is
> Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of
> Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then
> the Qur?anic library of the ministry, the cultural identity of Iraq is
> being erased.
>
> Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being
> destroyed? When I caught sight of the Qur?anic library burning ? there were
> flames 100 feet high bursting from the windows ? I raced to the offices of
> the occupying power, the US Marines? civil affairs bureau, to report what I
> had seen. An officer shouted to a colleague that ?this guy says some
> Biblical (sic) library is on fire.? I gave the map location, the precise
> name ? in Arabic and English ? of the fire, I said that the smoke could be
> seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive
> there. Half an hour later, there wasn?t an American at the scene ? and the
> flames were now shooting 200 feet into the air.
>
> There was a time when the Arabs said that their books were written in
> Cairo, printed in Beirut and read in Baghdad. Now they burn libraries in
> Baghdad. In the National Archives were not just the Ottoman records of the
> caliphate, but even the dark years of the country?s modern history,
> hand-written accounts of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, an entire library of
> Western newspapers ? bound volumes of the Financial Times were lying on the
> pavement ? and microfiche copies of Arabic newspapers going back to the
> early 1900s.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright © 2003 ArabNews All Rights Reserved.
>
> ¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥»§«¤»¥
>
> Barbara Q. Prior
> Head, The Clarence Ward Art Library
> Oberlin College
> Allen Art Building
> 83 North Main Street
> Oberlin, OH 44074-1193
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: (440)775-8635
> Fax: (440)775-8969
>
> http://www.oberlin.edu/~library/artlib/
>
> ¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥»§«¤»¥
>
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__________________________________________________________________
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For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
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