For most Lucknowites, the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama madrasa adjacent to Lucknow University is a closed-door seminary where no one except Islamic scholars are allowed to enter.
Contrary to this popular perception, the Allamah Shibli Nomani Library inside the Nadwa campus is open to people of all religions, where they can come and read books free of cost.

Librarian Mohammad Faizan Nagrami Nadwi said, “We don’t discriminate on the basis of religion. This library is for all religions. Here, pundits come and make notes. At the same time, maulanas visit the library to use reference books. We have a special section for modern books.”

“The library opens at 8am and closes at midnight. We offer all help to scholars who want to come here and read books and take notes. The Nadwa administration has installed photocopiers. Because we don’t give permission to anyone to carry the books home, we have provided the facility of photocopiers inside the library,” he said.

“The three-storey library covering a combined area of 60,000 square feet has more than 2.60 lakh books on various subjects, including fiction, science, languages and religion. The library has books in around 25 languages including 25,000 English books. The library also has more than 5000 books in Hindi explaining Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism , Jainism, Christianity etc. Besides, the library has more than 6000 rarest of rare manuscripts , some of them are 800 years’ old.”

Tafseer-e-Muntahal Uloom, an 800-year-old book written by Sheikh Nuruddin, is one of the prized possessions of the library along with 50 volumes of Al Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam by Oxford University professor Muhammad Akram Nadwi, who has written 50 volumes about 10,000 women scholars. It documents how the women enjoyed high public standing and travelled extensively for religious knowledge across Islamic countries. Mohammmad Faizan Nagrami Nadwi said, “The work of digitisation of the library is going on at a large scale. We have digitised almost all the manuscripts so that they can be preserved. Now the work of digitising almost all the books is going on. Our team is working day and night for that.” Most of the books in the library have been donated by scholars, said Nadwi.