VISIT TO SARAJEVO GAZİ HÜSREV BEY LIBRARY FROM OUR FACULTY DEAN

Dean of our faculty, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Hikmet ATAN visited the Sarajevo Gazi Husrev Bey Library and made observations. Library officer Hamza Lavic showed the library around and gave introductory information. The Bosnian sanjak lord Gazi Hüsrev Bey, who is considered the second founder of this city due to the many mosques, madrasahs, lodges and soup kitchens he built in Sarajevo, built a huge social complex with mosques, madrasahs, khankahs, soup kitchens, baths and inns. The library is also included as an important part of it. The library, which was built in 943 H (1537 AD), currently contains more than 10 thousand manuscripts in Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Bosnian languages, and this number reaches 100 thousand with printed books. The exhibition at the entrance of the library, which operates in its new building built with the contribution of the State of Qatar, right next to its old building, includes a manuscript that Gazi Hüsrev Bey, the founder of the library, personally donated to his own library with its original endowment deed, as well as a manuscript of the Quran. Exact copies of some of the Kerîm examples are on display. There is also a volume of the oldest manuscript of İmam-ı Gazzalı's inspired work, İhy'u ulûmi’d-icirc;n. Lavic stated that during the 1991 Bosnian war, the Gazi Husrev Bey Library was also bombed, its building was largely destroyed, and its books were found in banana boxes. He informed that he was transferred to protected places with great effort and protected. However, he said that 5 thousand manuscripts in the Sarajevo National Library were unfortunately destroyed by fire as a result of bombardment during the war, and that there was no microfilm of these works. After watching a documentary film about the transportation of the Library during the war, the visit was completed by visiting the antiquities repair units inside the Library.