Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Mumbai:

Inside a century-old building overlooking the streets of south Mumbai, a quiet effort is underway to save rare Persian and Urdu translations of Indian scriptures, the last surviving records of the country’s multi-cultural past.

The Karimi Library, housed within the 152-year-old Anjuman-I-Islam institute near the iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, has launched a restoration drive to rescue more than 32 sacred Hindu texts. These include the Mahabharat, Ramayan, Bhagavad Gita, and Shiv Puran, all printed between 1867 and 1896.

The library was established in 1898 after merchant Kazi Abdul Karimi Porbandari donated 4,500 valuable texts, and it was named after him. Padma Shri Dr Zahir Kazi, president of Anjuman-I-Islam, founded by Badruddin Tyabji in 1874, shared this history while speaking about the ongoing project.

The archive holds books, manuscripts, and newspapers in Sanskrit, English, Urdu, Persian, Marathi, Pashto, and Arabic, covering history, philosophy, theology, literature, and geography. It also features rare newspapers dating back to 1875, including the Jaipur Gazette, Ambala Gazette, and Cairo’s Al Kaira, alongside royal decrees from Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

“The books have become old and pages brittle. They need to be treated with special chemicals to weed out fungus and pests. Books that are not in good shape are pasted with special paper for preservation,” Kazi said.

A team of experts is handling the digitisation process, with pages being uploaded to Anjuman-I-Islam’s cloud account.

“These books reflect so much of tolerance. It is an eye-opener for Indians that the country’s heritage is very much there in this library,” Kazi said.

Library in-charge Mohammad Ghalib Mulla confirmed that more than 100,000 book pages and 70,000 pages from newspapers and periodicals have been digitised, leaving only 2,250 pages to complete the archiving project.

“The newspapers give details about the initial days of the freedom struggle, the social and political situation of those times, how journalism was, pro and anti-British,” Mulla said.

Several freedom fighters were part of Anjuman-I-Islam’s management, and the library witnessed many of their meetings, according to Kazi.

The library building is also undergoing renovation, with efforts to retain its original look and feel. “We intend to reopen the restored library by October 2, subject to completion of work. We also plan to host many national and international events in this library,” Kazi said.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Uncategorized / by Radiance News Bureau / August 31st, 2026