The Daily Telegraph

‘Isil started a war on reading. This was not the Iraqi way’

Mosul is on a mission to replace the contents of its burnt-out university library – book by book

- By Josie Ensor in Mosul

Thumbing the pages of the stack of new textbooks on his desk, Mosul University’s director of libraries felt grateful for what they had but could not help but lament what was lost. The university’s central library once housed one of the most extensive collection­s of literature in the Middle East, and for 18 years Mohammed Jassim al-hamdany had been its caretaker.

But after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) seized control of the Iraqi city in the summer of 2014, Moslawis found themselves without a library and Mr Hamdany without a job.

Staff and students fled, fearing what was to come. And when it did come it was worse than they could have ever expected.

Mr Hamdany watched the images on television of Isil setting fire to the library on a day still etched in his mind – Feb 3 2015.

The jihadists jeered as they rigged the building with explosives and doused the shelves with petrol.

“It was like a dagger through my heart. I would rather have watched my own home burn down than the library,” he says.

“It was my life’s work.

“We had over one million resources; 30,000 periodical­s, 7,000 reference books, a Koran from the ninth century, and texts dating back a millennium. Some of these things were irreplacea­ble.”

He managed to salvage just 2,000 volumes from the ashes.

“We have a saying in Arabic,” the 52-year-old told The Daily Telegraph from his office on the university’s campus. “Egypt writes, Lebanon publishes, and Iraq reads. Daesh (Isil) started a war on reading, on learning. This was not the Iraqi way.”

The library, which was establishe­d in 1921 and seen as a symbol of the birth of modern Iraq – establishe­d in the same year – was worst hit.

Isil’s attempt to kill the ideas within its walls was described by Unesco as “the most devastatin­g act of destructio­n of library collection­s in human history”.

Mr Hamdany had been forced to take refuge in neighbouri­ng Kurdistan, where he helped set up a temporary library for Mosul’s displaced students at Kirkuk University.

Hopes of recovering anything from the wreckage were dashed when the central library was bombed in March 2016 by the coalition, which claimed it was being used as an Isil headquarte­rs.

The building, which sits at the heart of the university grounds, is now just a blackened shell, a constant and painful reminder of the three brutal years under Isil.

Despite this, students have been quick to return – eager to catch up on the time they lost out on.

Some 45,000 enrolled this current academic year – several thousand more than before the days of Isil.

“Studying now has become a rebellion against Daesh,” Mr Hamdany says.

“Anything at all that was forbidden, young people now want to do.”

Mr Hamdany, along with a few other like-minded lecturers and alumni, has since been on a mission to rebuild the library, book by book.

Leading the social media drive has been Mosuleye, a historian and former student who blogged anonymousl­y about life under Isil. Posting messages in English on Twitter and Facebook, he appealed to his many thousands of followers for donations.

Ali Baroodi, an English language lecturer who has helped with the campaign, said that while there is still an immediate need for food and shelter in Mosul, he believes that by collecting books now, he could start to give hope to future generation­s.

“We have to stop crying about what was destroyed, stop thinking of ourselves as victims and start working,” he says.

“No one else is going to replace these books.”

A former student of translatio­n at University of Manchester, he contacted his alma mater for help. They have since received books from all over the world, including 1,500 from University of Manchester and 3,000 from Plymouth University, as well from the Smithsonia­n Institutio­n in Washington DC and a number of private donors.

Smaller donations were mailed to the nearby city of Erbil, while larger ones have been shipped to the port of Basra and from there were sent on lorries to Mosul.

National efforts have also been made, with street markets organised in Baghdad to sell books, which locals bought and donated towards replenishi­ng the university library.

“We are so grateful for all that we have been given,” says Mr Hamdany. “We have been overwhelme­d by people’s generosity.

“We have been sent around 50,000, and I would say around 20,000 of them are useful.

“We started from zero, so what we really still need is reference books, encycloped­ias, up-to-date textbooks that we can use in class. We are particular­ly short on science, medicine and humanities.

“Keep them coming,” he pleaded. The books are piling up and they have already outgrown the small classroom Mr Hamdany has been using as a makeshift library.

They had hoped to be able to move back into the original building by the time they reached 200,000, but there are currently no plans and no funds to rebuild it.

More than a year on from liberation and the only work that has so far been completed is mine clearance carried out by volunteers.

With half of Mosul destroyed and many thousands still displaced, there is much to do to get the city back on its feet, and the library is not considered a priority.

“The library is Mosul’s heart,” Mr Hamdany says. “The city cannot heal until it has been healed.

“It might take two years, it might take 10. But we will get there.”

‘Studying now has become a rebellion against Isil. Anything that was forbidden, young people now want to do’

‘ I would rather have watched my own home burn down than the library. It was my life’s work’

 ??  ?? Students outside the remains of the library at Mosul University; above left, a page of a book on the floor of the library, which was set on fire by Isil in 2015, destroying thousands of rare publicatio­ns
Students outside the remains of the library at Mosul University; above left, a page of a book on the floor of the library, which was set on fire by Isil in 2015, destroying thousands of rare publicatio­ns
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