Aceh library in need of repair

Aceh library in need of repair

BANDA ACEH, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam: An old library built by an Iraqi cleric with 6,000 handwritten books in the Teungku Chik Tanoh Abee Islamic boarding school in Seulimeum district, Aceh Besar regency, is badly in need of repair, a report said.

Teungku Hamdan Mustafa, a local community leader, said in Banda Aceh on Friday he had proposed that the district administration help rebuild the historic library.

The boarding school which includes the library, located some 50 kilometers from Banda Aceh, was founded by an Islamic leader from Baghdad, Iraq, around 600 years ago, when Sultan Iskandar Muda ruled the Aceh Islamic kingdom.

"The various books on Islam, now partly damaged by termites, were written in Arabic characters with special ink made of different plant fluids like aloe extracts and clove oil," Hamdan Mustafa added. --Antara