Schia library
The Schia library of the Oriental Seminary of the University of Cologne houses one of the most important collections of its kind in the western world.
The first books were acquired from 1949; the decision to set up a special collection was not made until the 1960s. Since a substantial part of the Schia research concentrates on the cultural history of Iran , most of the collection was created through purchases from Iranian private libraries, most of which are out of print lithographic editions.
The main areas of the Shia , especially the Twelve Shia , are represented in the library : Qur'an comments, Fiqh works, philosophy and Kalam , mysticism , ethics and sermons . Particularly noteworthy are the Usul works and fatwa collections. The latter are unique in their scope, as they are the almost complete Rasa'il al-amaliya of the 19th and 20th centuries, as far as they are available in print.
The collection goes far beyond works on Shiite doctrine, however. It also contains important sources, reference works and secondary literature relevant to the study of Shiite popular belief as such. Since a significant part of the schia research on modern developments concentrates on the cultural history of Iran, the corresponding works have also been collected in the Schia library.
Since the mid-1990s, the collection has comprised around 10,000 titles. Due to the limited financial resources, only a few new acquisitions could be made in recent years.
By connecting the collection to the inter-university interlibrary loan, it is now possible to get access to the books from the Schia library via loan.
literature
- Abdoldjavad Falaturi : The Significance of Schia Research for Islamic Sciences , in Lectures, XVII. Deutscher Orientalistentag, T. 2. 1969. pp. 604–610
- Kamran Amir Arjomand: Catalog of the library of Shiite literature in the Oriental Seminary of the University of Cologne , ed. by Abdoldjavad Falaturi, Munich 1988