Ashraf AboArafe
The General Authority for the Care of the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque organizes a number of permanent and mobile exhibitions inside and outside the Grand Mosque because of their effective importance in enriching visitors, in addition to the role of libraries, especially since they were concerned with the Two Holy Mosques, their architecture, and their deep cultural, historical, and emotional legacy, as all of this is presented in a digital way. It touches the feelings as if it were between the corridors of the Two Holy Mosques and narrated to them the details of Islamic architecture, plastic arts and crafts as they developed from one stage to another until reaching this era, and the mothers of heritage, legal and historical books that preserved the ancient heritage and contributed to transmitting it alive, such as the Holy Qur’an in the handwriting of Othman bin Affan, may God be pleased with him. .
These exhibitions work to enrich the visitor’s experience and embody for him the great care given by the Kingdom’s leaders since the era of the founder, King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud – may God have mercy on him – until the prosperous era of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud – may God protect him -, and the guests of the Most Merciful witness this. The development embodied by landmarks between the past and the present, such as carpets, doors, vehicles, the covering of the Holy Kaaba, the Zamzam Well, and models of major Saudi expansions.
To increase the richness of the experience, the Authority has allocated qualified and trained employees to the exhibitions to prepare these permanent exhibitions and mobile exhibitions according to the latest modern, technologically and digitally advanced methods that attract visitors around the world to expand their horizons and knowledge, historically and culturally, and convey to global communities in general the history and present of the comprehensive development process of the Two Holy Mosques and the system. Services of their destinations.
Enriching the visitor’s experience and raising his awareness is one of the Authority’s main goals, as it organizes visits to the exhibitions held at the Grand Mosque during the month of Ramadan, the library of the Holy Mosque of Mecca, and the library of the Grand Mosque, as well as visits to the Kiswah Complex, which receives its visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 4 p.m. Until 11 pm. The visitor can visit the library of the Grand Mosque, located on the second floor next to King Fahd Gate, throughout the day. As for the library of the Holy Mosque of Mecca in Batha Quraysh, it is available in two periods, from 10 am to 5 pm and the second from 4 pm to 11 pm.
The Library of the Holy Mosque of Mecca is considered one of the most important libraries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and one of the most prominent sources for students of knowledge and those seeking knowledge and information, with approximately 70 thousand titles in the Reading Hall containing endowment holdings. Since ancient times, it has been responsible for selecting rare books and manuscripts, in addition to selecting and supplying the library with collections. Books for different subjects and sciences.
Since the library contains the rarest manuscripts and publications, old books and newspapers are being cared for and restored through the Department of Restoration and Sterilization, which aims to preserve and maintain the information receptacles in the library of the Holy Mosque of Mecca so that beneficiaries can benefit from them. Therefore, it allowed visitors to visit it in the morning and evening periods from 8 am until 8 pm.
The Office Services Department works to prepare the place on an ongoing basis to provide the required office environment, as well as ensuring that the hall’s shelves are organized continuously and ensuring that the books are indexed between the shelves in a correct manner, which contain various branches of science and types of knowledge to enable researchers, readers, and students of science to access them and benefit from them in the finest way. As a possible means, the administration also provided rapid search devices as well as partial imaging machines.
The administration includes the Sheikh Nasser Al-Rashed Hall for reading and reading, which contains more than (100) thousand different titles, including the Arabic language, Sharia, the biography of the Prophet, social sciences, applied sciences, pure sciences, and others.
(Library of the Prophet’s Mosque):
The history of the establishment of the library of the Prophet’s Mosque dates back to the year 1352 AH. It is located inside the campus of the Prophet’s Mosque. It is the second largest library that includes ancient endowment manuscripts, such as the library of Sheikh Muhammad Al-Aziz Al-Wazir, which was stopped in 1320 AH. The author of the book “Treasures of Arab Books” mentioned that the library of the Prophet’s Mosque was formed Before the fire at the Prophet’s Mosque on the 13th of Ramadan in the year 886 AH, the treasures of the Qur’an and books burned in that fire. The treasures contained precious books and great Qur’ans. All visitors to the Prophet’s Mosque are allowed to benefit from the library and the services provided therein in the morning and evening periods, from 8 am to 8 pm.
The library’s departments consist of reading rooms, manuscripts department, audio library department, technical department, cataloguing department, rare books department, and digital library.
