And library after library, with ceilings of cedarwood, carved in times when men had more leisure and more patience.

Thousands of precious manuscripts, dating back some hundreds of years, but which here in El-Azhar are no whit out of date.

Open, in glass cases, are numerous inestimable Korans, which in olden times had been written fair and illuminated on parchment by pious khedives.

And, in a place of honour, a large astronomical glass, through which men watch the rising of the moon of Ramadan.

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