When a person looks at the image at the first instance, he would get an image that shows books vertically placed in a systematic manner. All the books somehow resemble each other and look a bit old.
So, let me tell you why such an arrangement has been done. It has been a type of customary practice which is carried out by the librarians once a year. All the books in the picture are manuscripts which are either originally written or copied from previously existing books. The old pages are such that due to moisture, they might stick to each other and thus, utilization of those books becomes difficult.
Hence, to avoid any such thing from happening, in every mid-summer, all the manuscripts are placed in fiery hot sun in the month of May for a stipulated period of nearly 2-2.5 hours only. The way of placing them is unique, as they are opened and spread out vertically which lets the heat enter between the pages. This practice ultimately results in hardening of pages and their separation due to heat. Some of these manuscripts are as much as 500 to 550 years old for which these steps are particularly necessary.
This practice is carried out every year since centuries. The manuscripts that you see in this picture, some of them are hundreds of years old. When the 32nd Da’i-ul-Mutlaq did hijrat from Ahmedabad to Vadodara, they brought books with them. The generations worked hard in conservation and preservation of these manuscripts. Over the years, these manuscripts were copied and re-written by the sons and hudoods of da’is. The modern approach to copying of these manuscripts has changed a bit.
At times, when the scholars who worked for the critical study and edition of any Isma’ili title they might be having only 2-3 MSS from different origins, i.e. where writer, place and period differ, there arose the demand for the consultation of more MSS. For this purpose, the MSS of ‘Alavi Da’wat collection because of its Indian origin, proved more fruitful for better text reading and editing. The other salient feature of ‘Alavi Library is that it is housed at the Da’is residence and most of the MSS are copied by the Du’aat from those which were brought to Vadodara when the Da’wat headquarters were shifted from Ahmedabad.
In the present times, da’wat invests a lot of effort and money in the preservation of the books which includes repairing, storing, recording, copying and printing books. Due to the recurrence of human error in copying the books and different interpretation and unbalanced Arabic grammar knowledge in the copiers, da’wat preferred to preserve the books which would make it look new but would have the same essence as manuscripts. High-resolution photos of these manuscripts are taken and printed in such a way that would imitate the original manuscripts. Thus, maintaining the originality and richness of the library of Alavi da’wah.
