OUR ISLAMIC HISTORY IS FOR SALE ON EBAY AND AT RISK OF BEING LOST…

Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islamic Jurist and Law Professor at UCLA School of Law, on the Importance of Saving Islamic Manuscripts:

"Al salamu alaykum. The purpose of this message is to renew my appeal for saving Islamic manuscripts…I want to underscore that a people without a history are without a present and without a future…

"Losing control of our history is no less tragic than losing Palestine, or losing Andalus, or losing any other Muslim territory. It is no less disastrous. In many ways, it is even more disastrous. Muslims became an uprooted people when they lost control of their history. We lost the battle when our history and our texts became controlled by Western powers, by colonial powers, by Orientalists. We lost the battle when the place where our history became studied and written became at Harvard and Princeton and Oxford and Cambridge - in institutions that are not Muslim. We became a dislocated people. A disoriented people.

"I am appealing to you to help save Islamic manuscripts – to save the very soul of Islamic identity. I am appealing to you to save the very core of what we are and what we will be in the future, by rooting and anchoring ourselves in what we were and what lessons we learned from our past. 

"This is why a donation to save an Islamic manuscript is no less important than a donation to save an Islamic life or many Islamic lives. It is definitely no less important than a donation to feed someone who's hungry. By saving the Islamic tradition, you are saving generations of Muslims…”