Madinah
The library of Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad Arif Hikmet Bey (d. 1275 AH / 1859) was one of the most important libraries of Ottoman Madinah. Arif Hikmet, a scholar,…
The library of Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad Arif Hikmet Bey (d. 1275 AH / 1859) was one of the most important libraries of Ottoman Madinah. Arif Hikmet, a scholar, poet and book collector who served as Shaykh al-Islam in Istanbul, set it up as an endowment registered in 1855, beside the zawiya of Shaykh Junayd on the qibla side of Masjid al-Nabawi, with around 5,000 volumes chosen from his own collection. Its deed laid down that anyone could use it, that no book could leave the building, and that it should stay open from morning to evening. Visitors in the early twentieth century described it as one of the most beautiful and best ordered libraries of the city, close to Bab Jibril. The building was taken down when the mosque was enlarged, and its site lies just south-east of the Green Dome. Its manuscripts were kept and later joined the endowment library collections of Madinah.