Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya

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DAR AL-KUTUB AL-MISRIYYA

The Egyptian national library.

The Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya library was founded in 1870 in Cairo as the Khedivial Library by Ali Mubarak, Khedive Ismaʿil's minister of education. German orientalists directed the library until World War I, when Egyptians took over. In 1904, along with the Museum of Arab Art, "the Dar" was installed in a neo-Islamic-style building. The Dar was moved again in the 1970s to new quarters on the Nile in Bulaq. President Husni Mubarak's wife Suzanne made a personal commitment to expanding literacy and reading, promoting the opening of numerous additional libraries throughout the country.

Bibliography


Crabbs, Jack A., Jr. The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: A Study in National Transformation. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1984.

donald malcolm reid