Libraries and information centers in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Although Saudi Arabia was founded in the twentieth century, its heritage is 1500 years old. In the 7th century A.D., Islam originated in the Hejaz, the upper sea coast area of the present Kingdom. Before Islam, there were many tribes in the area fighting with each other. Social life was very limited and formal education was non-existent. There was no written literature. “Most of their legends, poetry, and genealogies were transmitted orally from generation to generation. The practice of oral transmission was used in the early period of Islam. Muhammad, an illiterate, dictated every part of the Koran which was revealed to him. These parts in turn were dictated to others who wrote them down on various accessible material . . .“I These manuscripts constitute the origin of first Islamic literature. They were preserved by a few individuals who were able to read and write in those far-off times. As more and more people started learning the Koran and Hadith as a religious obligation, it brought a rapid change in the cultural life of the Arabs. They started to collect and translate into Arabic the literary remnants of earlier civilizations and thus Muslim scholars started building up their own private collections, Access to these private collections by others was possible. The collectors themselves used to encourage people to make use of their private collections, for this was the time when preachers of Islam required all possible means to spread the teachings of prophet Muhammad. The Islamic centers of learning-mostly mosques-were provided with copies of the Koran and other religious material. Many scholars gave their own collections to the mosques in their areas to be used by the public. Those mosques had the first libraries existing in the Arabian