HMML’s work in the city of Gaza began in 2020 to support the preservation of the manuscript library of the Great Omari Mosque, one of the most important and oldest national library and archives centers in Palestine. Much of the manuscript collection dates to the Ottoman era, with the oldest object—a Sufi text—dating to the 14th century. Digitization and cataloging of this collection was completed in 2022, and work began on the collection of Eyes on Heritage, a library of manuscripts, documents, and rare books collected in the Gaza Strip by the historian Dr. Abdul Latif Abu Hashim. Both manuscript collections are written solely in Arabic and cover subjects such as Islamic theology, Sufism, philosophy, law, grammar, medicine, chemistry, education, literature, and poetry. The jurisprudence manuscripts, in particular, demonstrate a deep relationship between Gaza’s jurists and other jurists from the famed Islamic cities of Cairo, Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Jaffa, Damascus, and Aleppo. Manuscript collections in the Gaza Strip are vulnerable and at risk due to the impact of conflicts, air strikes, and environmental conditions. HMML’s projects help protect the manuscripts through digitization, stabilization, and archival storage. Library staff, trained by HMML specialists, gain skills in conducting manuscript inventories, digitization, proper handling, and storage. Like all collections, these libraries and their manuscripts are of extreme importance, both to their local communities and more broadly to Palestine, the Middle East, and beyond.

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