The Fountain of Musafir

Staff report, "300-year-old library reopened in Aurangabad" - The Times of India - India
Sunday, March 23, 2008

Aurangabad: An ancient library dating back to 300 years was reopened after a gap of 40 years at the historical monument Water Mill in Aurangabad.

The library housing manuscripts and other precious and rare books like the Holy Quran written by the last Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, was thrown open recently to the public.

The library, at the 17th century site, once the biggest in Asia, was restarted with the efforts of the top officials of the Maharashtra Wakf Board.

According to the sources, it was Hazrat Babashah Musafir, a Sufi Saint migrated from Bukhara to Aurangabad in the 17th century who founded the library as well as the Water Mill. His shrine is within the Water Mill complex.

The library had around one lakh [100.000] pieces till Independence. In 70s it was shut down due to administrative reasons, following which many of the library's books were shifted to Hyderabad.

Currently, the library houses 3,500 books on various fields including history, law, medicine, Sufism, religion and philosophy in Arabic, in Urdu and in Persian languages, penned by philosophers, saints and scholars.

The cover of the Holy Quran has a coating of gold on both sides, which has been preserved till date. A holy book written in 1283 in four languages is also available.

The librarian, Mr Hafiz Abdul Jaleel said that Babashah Musafir founded the library with the main objective of spreading the knowledge.

"The library was considered to be the largest one in Asia during that time. Now, it has around 3,500 rare books. After reopening the library, many students, especially those who are engaged in research are thronging it" .

"There is no entry fee," he added.

[Picture: Panchakki Fountain (The Water Mill Complex), Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchakki]