In the back of a van, Rebin Pishtiwan carefully scans the yellowed pages of a worn and ancient book dating back several decades, as part of his mission to digitize ancient Kurdish books and manuscripts.
“We are seeking to digitize ancient, rare, and vulnerable books to prevent them from disappearing,” explains the 23-year-old man as he explores the public library of Dohuk, a city in the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
“Preserving the culture and history of Kurdistan is a sacred task,” he says as he scans the torn biography of a Kurdish teacher published in 1960.
In their small white van, Pishtiwan and his two colleagues depart once a week from Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, in search of “rare and ancient” books containing information about Kurds dating back more than 40 years, some even centuries.
About 150 kilometers away, they search through wooden shelves at the public library in Dohuk, looking for hidden treasures.
They select over 35 tattered books, including poetry, politics, language, and history books written in various Kurdish dialects and some in Arabic.
Pishtiwan holds a worn book of ancient Kurdish folk tales titled Xanzad, named after a Kurdish princess from the 16th century, and gently flips through a fragile religious text, running his fingers over the Arabic calligraphy.
Back in the van, equipped with two scanners connected to a screen, the small team begins the digitization process that can take several hours before returning the books to the library.
“Property of All Kurds”
Long persecuted under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds in Iraq have established a de facto autonomous region in the north of the country, recognized as such by the Iraqi Constitution of 2005 following the fall of the former regime after the 2003 American invasion.
Throughout their history, many documents have been lost or destroyed, and those remaining are scattered in public and private libraries, universities, or private collections.
In the absence of online archives, the Kurdistan Center for Arts and Culture (KCAC), an NGO founded by the nephew of the region’s president, Nechirvan Barzani, launched the digitization project in July.
The team hopes to make these ancient documents and books available online on the new KCAC website for free access starting in April.
Over 950 items have already been digitized, including a collection of manuscripts from the 1800s belonging to the Kurdish principality of Baban in the current Sulaymaniyah region.
“The goal is to provide primary sources for Kurdish readers and researchers,” explains Mohammed Fateh, executive director of KCAC.
“This archive will be the property of all Kurds to help us advance our understanding of ourselves.”
Electronic Library
In the Dohuk library managed by Masoud Khaled, old manuscripts and documents fill the shelves.
“We have books that were printed long ago— their owners or authors have passed away— and publishing houses will not reprint them,” explains the fifty-year-old.
Their digitization will ultimately lead to the opening of an “electronic library,” he added.
Hana Hirani, the imam of a mosque in the town of Hiran, revealed a treasure to the KCAC team— manuscripts several generations old from a religious school founded in the 18th century.
Since its founding, the school has acquired many manuscripts, but many were destroyed during the first war between Iraq and the Kurds in 1961, according to the imam.
“Today, only 20 manuscripts remain,” including poems centuries old, he says.
The imam is now awaiting the launch of the KCAC website in April: “It’s time to bring them out and make them accessible to all.”