Page 361 - Neglected Arabia (1916-1920)

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Dr. Zwemer, and the higher officials relax a little of their supercilious
dignity, even coming forward to touch his right hand (the usual native
salutation) and welcome him. Keep your eyes open, curios are in un­
expected places! Just inside the outer gate are two slabs with Arabic
inscriptions. One is round and artistic, with wonderfully mellow
colouring; the inscription is: ‘To God (be ascribed) Greatness.”
We move to the left up half a dozen stone steps into the secre­
taries’ office on our way to the celebrated library. Here again Dr.
Zwemer meets old friends: one young clerk can talk a little English;
then they wonder whether Dr. Zwemer will translate into Arabic a letter
from America asking for information about the Azhar and Muham­
madan laws and customs. One notices a few photographs of inscrip­
tions and many Arabic maps on the walls of the secretaries’ sanctum,
out of which opens the handsomely decorated committee room of the
Ulema. About the entrance to the library hang several modern maps
in Arabic. Alas, the attendants seem to have little idea of the use of
these; but they are vastly proud of them, and if you ask to be shown
any place or country they gravely point to some perhaps quite irrelevant
place and imply by a very learned manner that you must be peculiarly
unintelligent if you are not satisfied!
The library is a' fine high square hall with a roof partly inlaid,
partly painted ivory and brown. The walls are lined with rather musty-
looking books, and the body of the library has more well-filled book­
shelves, and also—under glass—unusually fine specimens of manu­
scripts, the oldest dating from 311 A.H. Some are of exquisite work­
manship, richly illuminated in gold.
Then there are some very beautiful little Koran boxes, with their
twenty-nine partitions, separating the thirty portions into, which the
Koran has been mechanically divided. The boxes are inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, and in some cases with gold and silver. This division
of the Koran is to facilitate the reading of the whole book during
Ramadan (the month of fasting)—one portion daily. Also after
funerals it is usual for thirty or more readers to each take a portion, and
all read aloud at once that the whole Koran may be recited in one
!
evening.
The library contains some 36,785 volumes, 3,123 of which are
Korans, and 2,357 commentaries on the Koran; 4,195 are volumes of
Tradition and 356 commentaries on Tradition; 8,331 deal with “Fiq,”
4,406 with grammar, and 3,639 are concerned with ethics.
We now visit the central court—the most striking feature of the
Azhar enclosure. It is roughly square, open and flagged. About the
centre there is said to have been a fountain used for ceremonial wash­
ing. This is now performed less conspicuously in a large room re­
served for men on the north side of the quadrangle. Women do not
i
worship in the Azhar Mosque.
The court is surrounded by covered cloisters with rough marble
colonnades. These shut out the squalor surrounding the Azhar. en­
closure, and create a certain atmosphere of retirement. Above them
i: on the south side rise several shaky but artistic old minarets with the
usual metal crescent at the top covered with verdigris.