The Khalidi Library: The Preservation of Palestinian History in Jerusalem

The historic Khalidi Library (al-Khalidiyya) sits in the Old City of Jerusalem. Established in 1900 by the Khalidi family, it is the first Arab public library formed by a private initiative in Palestine.

The library is part of the Khalidi Library complex, which is made up of an exhibition center, a private home, and the library. It is maintained through a waqf dhurri (a Muslim religious trust established by the founder for the benefit of a family). The Khalidi family waqf was established by Shaykh Muhammad Ali al-Khalidi around 1828, which means that, under Islamic law, the property can’t be sold, mortgaged, or transferred to another owner, and will remain in the trust for future generations.

The complex’s exhibition building encloses a mausoleum called Turbat Baraka Khan. “These are the tombs of three Central Asian knights,” Khader Salameh, librarian at the Khalidi Library, says.1 “They came to Egypt and Syria to fight the Crusaders. The big one is the father, Husam al-Din ibn Baraka Khan, and these are his two sons, Husam al-Din Kara Beg and Badr al-Din Muhammad Beg.”

In many ways, this place is a sanctuary for the history of the Khalidi Library and the preservation of Palestinian culture in Jerusalem.

The story of the Khalidi Library is one of resistance, persistence, and resilience, and the fact that we are standing here today is a triumph. Now, the family’s priority is to ensure that this historic building and its contents stay exactly where they are.

The exhibition center was built between 1265 and 1280. The library complex is surrounded by ancient Mamluk buildings, which include seminaries for the study of the Quran, colleges of higher education, and Sufi retreats, although in recent years three of these buildings have been confiscated and occupied by Israel. The library has been open to the public since 1900, but it’s been actively preserving historic Arab manuscripts and documentation relating to the Khalidi family since 1720.

The Khalidi family can be traced back to the early Muslim conqueror Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642 AD) and has existed in Jerusalem since the 11th century AD. The family rose to prominence in 1416 when Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah Shams al-Din al-Khalidi was appointed chief judge of Egypt. The Khalidis held prominent positions as scholars, clerks, and judges during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. In fact, several members of the family fought in the Ottoman ranks against the British army during World War I.

The family has been keeping records of their manuscripts since 1720. The library holds around 5,000 printed books in Arabic and other languages, and manuscripts chosen by generations of family scholars and jurists. The library is one of the largest collections in Palestine and indeed one of the largest family-owned collections of Islamic manuscripts in the world.

The earliest record of an endowment deed dates to 1656 AD. Shaykh Abu al-Rida Taha al-Khalidi (d. 1660) endowed 50 tomes of books to the library, although their whereabouts are currently unknown.

The first core endowment came from Shaykh Muhammad Sun‘ullah (senior) in 1720 AD. He endowed 560 manuscripts to the Khalidi Library, with instructions that they can only be used under strict supervision of the librarian. Since that day, the library has served scholars from all over the world, acting not only as a documentation of the Khalidi family’s history in Jerusalem but as a valuable resource for historic Islamic texts from across the Middle East.

Since opening to the public, the library has survived an immense amount of upheaval. Between 1900 and today, it’s lived through the Ottoman era, the Colonial British Mandate, the Nakba of 1948, and Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

The library wasn’t damaged during the 1948 War, but it was affected by it, with some family members forced to flee. Between 1967 and 1982, they managed to resist several confiscation attempts, motivated by its prime location just meters away from Judaism’s holiest sites. Israel confiscated and destroyed many private Arab libraries during this time, as well as the Maghrebi Quarter neighborhood in Jerusalem, which was close to the library. In the 1980s, Israel attempted to apply the Absentees’ Property Law to the library and claim it as its own. However, a family member was able to disprove the order and formed a family committee to protect the library from such attempts in the future.

In 1982, after repeated attempts from Israel to take over the annex, the Khalidis filed lawsuits to defend their waqf. They successfully sued Israeli rabbi Shlomo Goren, who threw rubble from his yeshiva into the mausoleum and the mayor’s office because of delays to their restoration license.

Between 1991 and 1994, the mausoleum and all the library’s buildings were refurbished, and security systems were installed, and as the twentieth century came to a close, the Khalidi family was able to celebrate 100 years of the first Arab public library in Jerusalem.

Although the Khalidi Library survived the Nakba, the fall of East Jerusalem, and the vitriol of the Israeli state and Jewish settlers, it continues to face challenges today. In the 1980s, Jewish settlers dumped excrement into the family’s water tanks, banged on doors loudly at night, and once stole the library keys.

Today, backdropped by Israel’s genocide in Gaza, settlers are becoming increasingly bold and have support from Israel, its army, and police forces.

In July 2024, knowing the residence had recently become vacant due to a death in the family, Jewish settlers forcibly occupied the home for a day by presenting forged documents to police, who allowed them to enter and seize the home under their protection (see Settlers Fail at Brazen Attempt to Seize Historic Khalidi Home). The family took the family to court, exposing the fraudulent documents, and won back the home.

However, it remains a desirable target for settlers because of its proximity to the Western Wall, as shown by the photos below, which were taken inside the residence.

Khader is currently the only librarian working for the Khalidi Library. He travels to the complex three days a week from Dheisheh, a Palestinian refugee camp not far from the city of Bethlehem. He knows the rich history and contents of the library like the back of his hand and regularly provides guided tours of the annex.

“The history of Jerusalem is the history of the families,” Khader says. “If you don’t know the history of the families then you don’t know the history of the city, because they controlled the whole city.”

Khader has worked as a librarian and museologist in the al-Aqsa Mosque area for more than three decades. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in library science and a master’s in Ottoman history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written five books about the history of the al-Aqsa Mosque region and plans to write two more.

Khader reveals that the main issue for the Khalidi Library and others in Jerusalem is that they lack consistent budgets. “This library shows that we are living here, in Jerusalem, and have been for centuries,” Khader says. “It defies this idea there was nobody in Palestine. This place shows our history.”

To prove his point, he shows me copies of manuscripts from 598 AD displayed in glass cases in the exhibition space and the expansive Venn diagram on the wall that documents the history of the family throughout all these years.

I meet David Dahdal, director of development and grants for St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital, at his office in Jerusalem. He has extensive experience in the heritage and culture sector, which is how he came to work alongside the Khalidi family in his spare time.

“I’ve been with the Khalidi Library for eight years now,” he says.2 “Throughout the years, they collected manuscripts that you can’t find anywhere else, and it’s the largest private endowment in Jerusalem. We have many archives, and in this part of the world it’s very important to keep them. This is what we rely on to prove ownership and to prove our origins.”

One way to ensure that these documents are never destroyed is through digitization. This is time-consuming and expensive, but the Khalidis have begun the process, preserving hundreds of endangered documents and manuscripts. “So, whatever happens to the physical copies, we will have digital copies,” David says. “It would be unfortunate, but in this part of the world where conflict is protracted, you cannot expect what’s going to happen. You see what’s happening in Gaza.”

To successfully preserve their materials, the Khalidi family works with one of the few Palestinian conservation specialists. “We established a small conservation lab to slowly, slowly preserve the endangered manuscripts that we have in our archives,” David explains.

Despite his best efforts, David says it’s almost impossible to plan for the future. “We keep our hopes very low,” he says. “We always wish for stability, but here nothing is safe, no one is safe.”

“Keeping the Arab identity and Arab presence in Jerusalem is in itself a challenge, so we don’t dream of what we want, because we don’t know what’s happening tomorrow,” David adds.

“The preservation of the existence of Palestinians and Arabs in Jerusalem is the biggest challenge, and our priority.”