Friday, October 13, 2006

A Place To Read

Last night I attended the opening of the new and fabulous Iqra Library in Muharaq, opposite the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture & Research.

The library – in addition to being stunningly beautiful – will serve as a reading house for young people and children between 6 and 12, a more than welcome move and one that surely will have an impact on encouraging the young ones to pick a book up and read.

The interior design is simple, contemporary yet grounded in tradition. There is the actual library, the computer hallway, and the gallery hall. It makes perfect use of a small space with calm and soothing decor.

The Arabic word Iqra means 'read'. And intrinsically it was the very first word that from the Koran that was delivered to Prophet Mohammed (PbuH), signifying the importance of reading and how celebrated it is in Isalm.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this library progressed and what sort of response it will get and the various programmes and activities it will introduce. Meanwhile though, I suggest you go down and visit it – and don't forget to take the kids with you!

2 comments:

Um Naief said...

Is this an Arabic lanugage library only?

Ali Al Saeed said...

No, they also have English books as well. Although I didn't find many of the classic children's stories/books there!