Author: Nadia Barclay, Director of Outreach at the Arab Cultural Trust
Overview:
al-hakawati.net is a virtual public library of Arab and Islamic heritage. Our purpose is to make learning and knowledge about the Arab world easily available, and to promote understanding of Arab/Islamic culture in the Arabic speaking work and in the West.
Over the past 12 years we have built an extensive collection, including:
- Nearly 400 full-text searchable heritage books on astronomy, history, mathematics, poetry, medicine, geography, religion, music etc.
- Audio recordings of poems and stories read by the author
- Constitutions of the Arab countries
- Information about nature preserves, local flora and fauna
The library is organized into ten main sections: Stories & Tales, Personalities, States, Cities and Regions, Civilizations, Arts and Artists, Histories and Cultures, Environment, Architecture, and Religion.
Tips to Navigate the Library:
Our readers can find content using the freeform search toolbar or the drop down menus. Each of the 10 main sections in the menu has several sub-sections.
We recently redesigned the homepage incorporating 9 frames where we highlight articles from the various sections as suggestions of what a reader can expect. This design also allows us to feature selections (paragraphs or chapters) from the canon of Arabic books, and thereby introduce a new generation to this valuable resource.
The library is mostly in Arabic; however, there is an English section, currently being updated. It covers the same 10 main topics, but the content was produced separately, and is not a translation of the Arabic texts.
To contact us with feedback or questions, please send an email to me, Nadia Barclay at: nadia.barclay@gmail.com