Basel University gets private Afghan library collection

Afghan Calligrapher Mohammad Sabir Khedri showcases the biggest copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, at the Hakim Nasir Khosrow Balkhi library in Kabul, Afghanistan (2012) Keystone / S. Sabawoon

The University of Basel is taking over the hitherto privately-run Bibliotecha Afghanica, a rich collection of material steeped in Afghan history. 

The Bibliotheca Afghanica comprises around 300 linear metres of written material on the history of Afghanistan and around 70,000 historical pictorial documents, the University of Basel announced on Monday. It was founded by Paul and Veronica Bucherer-Dietschi in 1975. A foundation in the village of Bubendorf in canton Basel-Land took over the collection in1983. 

Initially, the library focused on the country’s nature, culture and history. After Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the founding couple collected information about the the Soviet occupation and the resistance mounted by the population.

The collection also conveys the change from an open Islam influenced by Sufism to the jihadism of the Islamist rebel group Mujahideen and the Taliban, an ultraconservative political and religious faction that emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Such documents capturing a country’s transition to extremism are unique in the world, according to the announcement.

In 1998, the Afghanistan Institute, together with Afghan personalities, founded not only the library in Bubendorf but also an Afghanistan Museum in Exile, which remained open until 2000. In 2007, the objects of that collection were returned to Kabul, the Afghan capital. The Taliban, who came  back to power in 2021, have a history of destroying cultural heritage.