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Sharjah hosts an exhibition of the royal manuscript collection of Spain

From April 2-9, a rare collection of centuries-old royal manuscripts, maps and other historical volumes will travel to Sharjah, the region’s cultural capital, for a first-of-its-kind exhibition.

The product of a partnership between Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) and the Spanish Historical Heritage Institute designed for knowledge exchange and dissemination, the exhibition is being organised with the authorisation of the Royal Palace.

The event presents an unprecedented opportunity to students, researchers, academia, cartographers, and collectors of rare books, as well as history and language enthusiasts, to access 14 rare manuscripts dating back to the 13, 14,15, and 16th centuries. The oldest of them is Al Bakri’s Roads and Kingdoms, which dates from the 13th century. The authority’s latest initiative testifies to SBA’s continued efforts to promote knowledge and culture by bringing the world’s most prestigious literary treasures to Sharjah.

The collection spans diverse fields of science and knowledge, including philosophy, history, geography, and astronomy, in Arabic, showcased outside the El Escorial Library for the first time in its history.

Among the most important manuscripts, documents and books that the exhibition makes available to visitors is a manuscript entitled “Diwan of Ibn Al Khayat”, “Al Jawaher Al Magmo’a wa Al Nawader Al Masmo’a”, the book “E’rab Al Quran”, the manuscript book of “Al-Majmoo’ al-Faaiq min Hadith Khatam Rasul al-Khaliq” and the book “Anatomy of the Law”. And the Diwan of Shams al-Din al-Hanafi.