By Mohammed Dhaher

Azzaman, November 19, 2007

Thousands of manuscripts have disappeared among them priceless copies of the Holy Koran, an Iraqi librarian said.

The librarian, who wanted his name kept secret, said the manuscripts were “expropriated” by a U.S.-led force shortly after the 2003 invasion of Baghdad.

The former government had moved the manuscripts from the national library shelves to a cellar close to the Umm al-Teboul mosque in Baghdad for fear of damage or theft.

The librarian said the troops removed the manuscripts from the cellar but there is no trace of them.

He said there were about 50,000 manuscripts in the national library which were all moved to the cellar. The collection, he added, was “the largest and the most valuable in the whole Middle East.”

Of the most valuable manuscripts that have gone missing is a copy of the Holy Koran hand-written by Imam Ali only a few years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.

“There was a Koran written on snake skin. The miniature copy was no more than a few centimeters wide,” said the librarian.

Eyewitnesses say they still remember the troops carrying the manuscripts from the cellar onto vehicles.

U.S. troops say they have no knowledge of the manuscripts and their spokesman, Abdullatif Rayan, denied that U.S. troops had entered the cellar where the books were kept.

Most of these manuscripts were at least 1,000 years old, added the librarian.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news2007-11-9kurd9.htm

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