Important legacies in the Gazi Husrev-bey's library

Abstract

The article »Important Legacies in the Gazi Husrev-bey Library« presents the private collections of the Oriental manuscripts donated to the Gazi Husrevbey's Library.
The Gazi Husrev-bey's Library possesses around 7000 codices of manuscripts containing over 20.000 works, more than half of which came to the Library through legacies-donations. The rest are manuscripts from the original found of the Library which was formed for the needs of the Library by the legator Gazi Husrev-bey, along with purchased manuscripts and smaller, often, anonymous gifts. In addition, there are more than 2000 codices of manuscripts registered in the temporary inventory.

The major part of these manuscripts was collected in recent times through the Council of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as by individual gifts. In that way, by means of all these legacies, great and small, the Gazi Husrev-bey's Library became one of the richest collections of Oriental manuscripts in the world. The richest collections transferred to the Gazi Husrev-bey's Library are those of: Karađozbeg and Derviš paša Bajezidagić of Mostar fXVIth c.), Osman Šehdi-effendi of Sarajevo (Founded in 1757), Elči Ibrahim-paša of Travnik (the beginning of the XVIIth century), Dženetić of Sarajevo (the end of the XVIIIth c.), Salih Izeti ef. Hromić of Stolac (XIXth c.) and others. Ali of these collections are also evidence of the cultural and scientific prosperity of the environment in which they were formed, as well as of the affinity of their former owners.