The Revival of the Sharia Committee Library

The Sharia Committee Library is considered one of Kuwait’s foremost libraries in terms of its specialized content in Islamic law, encompassing various fields such as economics, law, education, media, and other disciplines. It occupied two floors of the Committee’s building, in addition to dozens of boxes of books that could not find space due to limited capacity.

The Sharia Committee Library… Foundations and Marks of Loyalty

The honorable brother, Mr. Abdulrahman Al-Nasser, Director of the “Information and Documentation Center” (may God grant him recovery), supervised the organization and arrangement of this library. He devoted his time, health, and life within the walls of this library and center. If you were to ask every shelf, computer, and corner of the center, you would find his fingerprints as clear as the sun, and they would say: Abdulrahman passed through here.

How often he joined night with day, how often he carried his files home, and how many times… all for the sake of presenting this center in the best possible form, for it became a destination for seekers of knowledge from within Kuwait and abroad.

The responsibility grew greater after the late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad, may God have mercy on him, ordered the opening of the center’s doors to all seekers of knowledge, after it had been reserved for committees, working groups, and researchers within the Committee.

Treasures of Knowledge and Prospects for the Center’s Future

 The “Information and Documentation Center” houses four libraries: the Heritage Library, the Modern Library, the Audio-Visual Library, and the Periodicals and Academic Theses Library. It possesses dozens of rare manuscripts, tens of thousands of books, references, periodicals, and scientific journals with distinguished titles and subjects, placing it among the leading ranks in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and granting it a prominent position internationally.

An electronic website was also established for the center under the name “Burooj” (www.burooj.gov.kw), offering its visitors various informational services.

This center contains:

·         More than 100,000 books

·         More than 300 periodicals

·         More than 500 manuscripts

·         More than 2,000 non-traditional materials

·         17 bibliographies

Thousands of researchers and seekers of knowledge benefited from this center, and it served as a reference for hundreds of master’s and doctoral students.

In front of this great scientific edifice, we call upon the relevant authorities to reopen the library’s doors to seekers of knowledge, in both morning and evening sessions, and to continue the “Information and Documentation Center” in providing its services to its visitors. This is especially important after its work ceased following the conclusion of the activities of the Supreme Advisory Committee for the Completion of the Application of Islamic Law, particularly since the database and resources remain intact, with the possibility of expanding the library’s spaces after the building was vacated by other departments and committees.

To preserve this remarkable legacy, it would be fitting to invite the honorable brother Mr. Abdulrahman Al-Nasser to supervise this center as a specialized consultant with long-standing expertise in his field, in which he excelled beyond his teachers. He knows every corner of it. Alongside this, reviving the “Burooj” electronic center, renewing and developing it, updating its devices and programs, and providing the necessary staff to serve the center and its visitors would be essential.

It would also be graceful to name it after Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, in loyalty to the founder of the Committee, who ordered the opening of the library’s doors to seekers of knowledge.

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