Hyderabad: The Telangana government has decided to digitalise ancient Persian, Urdu and Arabic manuscripts available in the Dairatul Maarif, Osmania.
Dairatul Maarif (Centre for Research and Editing of Manuscripts) was established in 1888 with the objective to procure, transcribe, collate, edit and publish rare Arabic manuscripts of prominent scholars belonging to the classical era of Islam.
M.J. Akbar, director for Directorate of Minorities Welfare of Telangana, said that the Dairatul Maarif had secured the rarest manuscripts of renowned Arabic, English, Persian and Urdu scholars across the globe on a wide range of subjects including interpretation of the Holy Quran, tradition, principles of tradition, history, philosophy, Sufism, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, surgery, ophthalmology, dialectics, dogma, Islamic jurisprudence and ecology.
Dairatul Maarif director Prof. Mustafa Shareef, said that “We have the rarest of manuscripts, including 24 volumes of a book belonging to the 4th century dealing with medicine. One of the volumes particularly deals with causes for abdominal diseases and prescribes the medicines for its cure. Similarly, another volume discuss diabetes and its cure.”
While adding that this kind of collection is nowhere available in the world, the professor said “We published the books based on the manuscripts, but it is very essential to preserve the hand written copies of the renowned scholars.”
Mr Akbar said that the state government has recently sent a proposal to the Union ministry of minorities Welfare seeking Rs 37 crore financial assistance for digitalisation of the rarest of rare manuscripts. The proposal has received an in-principle approval by the secretary Arvind Mayaram.
