NABLUS, West Bank — On the second floor of the Nablus Municipality Public Library in the northern West Bank, the personal collection of Palestinian scholar Qadri Tuqan steals the spotlight with its rare items. The array consists of more than 5,000 books, references and manuscripts in both English and Arabic.

His collection also includes everything he gathered during his travels in search of knowledge around the world in the fields of science, mathematics and astronomy. In addition, it contains his desk and chair, as well as pictures of him with figures such as King Hussein bin Abdullah and Mahatma Gandhi.

Before he passed away in 1971, Tuqan asked for his collection to be donated to the library, in recognition of its role as the first public library in Palestine.

The city founded the Nablus Municipality Public Library in 1960 under a royal decree from King Hussein Bin Talal of Jordan. It gathered dozens of archival manuscripts from before the 1948 displacement of Palestians (the Nakba) up until the 1960s, a step that was seen as a cultural and civilizational revolution in the city — which at the time was full of intellectuals, writers and thinkers such as Tuqan.