Bait al Hikmah
Madinat al-Hikmah (City of Education, Science and Culture) was founded in 1983 at Bund Murad, twenty seven (27) K.M. from the centre of Karachi. The foundation stone of Hamdard University was laid in 1985 by the Former President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Ziaul Haque. Keeping in view the importance and essentiality of the library near the Hamdard University, Shaheed Hakim Muhammad Said , a humanitarian, great patriot and owner and founder of the project of Madinat al-Hikmah instructed to construct the building of Bait al-Hikmah. He invited the then President of Pakistan Mr. Ghulam Ishaque Khan who inaugurated the Bait al-Hikmah, the first major and most important institution of Madinat al-Hikmah, on 11/12/1989. The library was named Bait al-Hikmah to commemorate the first one established at Bughdad by Caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansoor. Later it was developed by Caliph Haroon Rashid and Caliph Mamoon Rashid during the 14th century. The present Bait al-Hikmah symbolizes a wooded transfusion to the Muslim’s traditional love for learning and scholarship.
We marched from 14th to 21st century. During this period a great development and change emerged in the field of science and technology. The Bait al-Hikmah possesses all the modern library equipments, books and non book material as well as technical and experienced hands to furnish every thing needed by the seekers of knowledge. Bait al-Hikmah library today is the privately managed library of South East Asia.
After the creation of Pakistan in 1947 Hakim Muhammed Said, migrated from India to Pakistan. His luggage contained about three hundred books mainly on Eastern medicine and Islamic studies. With the passage of time the number of books increased. When this number crossed 75,000 Hakim Sahib donated his personal library to Hamdard Foundation Pakistan.
In 1983 the Madinat al-Hikmah was founded. First of all Hakim Sahib laid the foundation stone of Bait al-Hikmah. Its building stretched over 127,000 sqr.ft was completed in 1989. It is the biggest library building in South East Asia. At present it occupies 4,77,251 books in English, Urdu, Arabic Persian etc. and 29,611 bound volumes of Journals 3.65 Million of newspaper clippings on 1320 subject. It will accommodate about 25 lacs books when the building is raised to five floors.
This library is serving not only Pakistani scholars or students but it is used as resource centre for the whole world. It is be linked with important libraries of the globe through internet and e-mail. The scholars who visit Bait al-Hikmah is also be benefited with the materials and services of various well-known libraries of the world. As far as the materials services of this library are concerned,they may be categorized as below.
Facts and Figure 2010-2011 |
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| Collection | 47,7251 | |
| English | 217,764 | |
| Urdu | 186,742 | |
| Arabic | 32,282 | |
| Persian | 30,788 | |
| Reference & Rare Books | 9,675 | |
| Manuscripts | 1,738 | |
| Parsian | 1,025 | |
| Arabic | 536 | |
| Urdu | 138 | |
| Punjabi | 22 | |
| Turkish | 7 | |
| Sindhi | 3 | |
| Pushto | 1 | |
| Hindi | 6 | |
| Author’s Handwritten Manuscripts | 657 | |
| Translation of the Holy Quran | 421(66 Languages) | |
| Periodical Titles Current | 1,208 | |
| Bound vol. of bock sets of Periodicals | 29,611 | |
| A.V. Cassettes | 2,846 | |
| Photographs of Hamdard Activities cover | Over 40,125 | |
| Newspapers:Clippings from Newspapers about 3.68 million covering over 1300 Subjects | ||
| Postal Stamps: several thousand from 146 countries | ||
| Coins: 450 Coins of different countries | ||