/image © The Librarian of Basra/
Here is a real-life hero story. Alia Muhammad Baqer was the chief librarian in the Al Basrah Central Library in Basra (Iraq). Baqer saved around thirty thousand books from destruction during the Iraq War, including a biography of Muhammad from around 1300.
Her story inspired two children’s books, one of them being The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter (illustrated by Winter in bright acrylic and ink). It might be presented as a children’s book, but this lovely story is out there for everyone.
The book is written in a simple style and it’s very easy to understand, but the story it describes is not a simple one – it took a lot of courage to do what Alia Baqer and her friends did.
Baqer worked at the library for fourteen years. As the war spread out, she tried to make sure books from the library would be…
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During ancient times the lands now comprising Iraq were know as Mesopotamia (“Land Between the Rivers”), a region that gave rise to some of the world’s earliest civilizations. This wealthy region, constituting much of what is called the Fertile Crescent, later became part of larger imperial powers, including the Persian, Greek, and Roman dynasties, and, after the seventh century, it became an integral part of the Islamic world. Baghdad became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century.
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