Doha, June 28 (QNA) - The Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs held an official groundbreaking ceremony for Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah Al-Thani Waqf Library in Doha on Sunday.
The ceremony was attended by HE Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs Ghanem bin Shaheen bin Ghanem Al Ghanem, alongside top echelons of officials and those interested in cultural and endowment affairs.
The move demonstrates the launch of one of the pre-eminent projects that bolsters the Waqf role in supporting knowledge and serving society.
It is part of Awqaf's path toward promoting the civilizational role of endowment to be leveraged for serving science and culture through shoring up integrated projects that combine knowledge dimension with economic sustainability.
This comes into line with the Ministry's strategic plan 2025–2030 and ultimately helping achieve the objectives of Qatar National Vision 2030 in the areas of developing people and building a knowledge-based community.
This milestone is a role model of multi-purpose projects to be constructed in the strategic Umm Ghuwailina area, covering 4,015 square meters and retrofitted with cultural, administrative, and investment facilities.
It has been specifically designed to cope with state-of-the-art standards of public libraries and cultural facilities, based on a cutting-edge architectural perspective that achieves integration between functional performance and sustainable Waqf returns.
The project has been designed using a tiered structural system integrating both functional and knowledge-oriented components.
It consists of three below-grade basement levels with a total area of 6,213 square meters, providing logistical infrastructure, including parking for 156 vehicles, arranged in a geometric layout ensuring smooth circulation and efficient access to building facilities.
This library serves as the beating heart of the project, extending from the ground floor to the second floor, with a total built-up area of 5,534 square meters.
It includes a capacious main hall, multiple reading rooms, designated research and study halls, as well as a multi-purpose hall, a cafeteria, a VIP area, and supporting services that enhance the quality of the visitor experience.
Its space extends to the mezzanine level, which includes additional reading rooms and a dedicated children’s library, while the first floor showcases an open courtyard for researchers, alongside continued reading areas and classrooms equipped with modern educational tools.
The second floor is allocated to library administration, while maintaining reading spaces and supporting services.
In addition, the project includes an upper-level administrative and investment tower, with floors three to seven allocated for a total area of 7,870 square meters.
It contains 35 flexible office units of varying sizes and layouts, ranging from 98 to 226 square meters, designed to meet evolving market demands and generate sustainable endowment returns that support cultural and scientific activities, ensuring the long-term continuity of the project’s mission in a practical model that combines knowledge dissemination with endowment-based resource development.
Speaking at the ceremony, Director-General of the General Directorate of Endowments Eng. Hassan Abdullah Al Marzouqi said the project is an incredibly pioneering model for sustainable cultural endowment, the epitome of an integrated strategic vision that strives to combine knowledge dissemination with sustainability through leveraging powerful Waqf resources.
Al Marzouqi highlighted that the project demonstrates the revival of Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah Al-Thani's legacy, who realized that science is the core pillar of building nations and that endowment is the fitting vehicle to ensure perpetuating this message through generations.
The project reflects the endowment model as an integrated system that balances present service with future development, Al Marzouqi underlined, noting that the cultural landmark will strengthen academic activity and provide an advanced knowledge environment for researchers and students.
Al Marzouqi added that the General Directorate of Endowments is continuing to advance educational and cultural endowments and their impact through innovative models that combine operational efficiency with economic sustainability, while fulfilling endowment conditions, preserving donor intent, and aligning with national efforts to build a knowledge-based society.
Overall, the project is funded by Waqf Bank for Scientific and Cultural Development as part of strengthening the role of endowment as an impactful development tool that helps support education and build well-aware generations capable of competing in an evolving world, with essential preservation of time-honored tenets, Al Marzouqi outlined.
Established in 1982 in Umm Ghuwailina in accordance with the founder’s endowment, this library stands as one of the nation's leading waqf libraries.
It operates as an integrated knowledge system, featuring multiple reading halls, a periodicals section, a children’s library, and specialized services including cataloging, classification, lending, and acquisitions. (QNA)
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