Islamic Library: History, Classification, and Waqf Role

Abstract

Islam provides a great impetus for humans to pursue knowledge. The first verse revealed from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is Iqra, which means “to read”. The Qur’an uses repetition to instill certain concepts in the consciousness of its listeners. Allah (God) and Rab (Sustainer) are repeated 2,800 and 950 times, respectively, in the Alquran and Ilm (knowledge) 750 times. The need to preserve the Alqur’an aroused a passion for compiling writings in various forms, which paved the way for establishing the earliest libraries in the Muslim world. Libraries in Islamic history occupy an important position. Its existence is very difficult to separate from the development and progress of science and Islamic civilization, especially in the 8-10 century AD. This study aims to determine Islamic library research trends published by leading journals. The data analyzed consisted of 663 indexed research publications. The data is then processed and analyzed using the VoS viewer application to determine the bibliometric map of the development of Islamic research libraries. There were at least 7 types of Islamic libraries in the golden age of Islamic civilization: independent library, public library, mosque library, palace library, university library, ribat library, and bimartisan or hospital library. The seven types of Islamic libraries are almost entirely waqf-based.

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