Mar'ashi Najafi Library
The Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library, in Qom, is the third largest library in Iran, after the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi, and the Library of Parliament, as well as being the world's third largest Islamic library, with more than 250,000 books, 25,000 of them online. Founder. The library began as the personal library of the founder, Ayatollah Marashi Najafi, a prominent Islamic scholar known for his dedication to religious scholarship and education throughout his life, who began collecting rare texts as a student, partly to keep them from being possessed by the British colonial authorities . Marashi Najafi died shortly after laying the foundation stone of a new library building in 1989. His will states: History and management. Since Najafi's death, ownership and management of the library has since passed to his son, Mahmoud Marashi, who is instructed by his father's will. The library was founded in 1963, with further expansion in 1974 and 1988. It is situated one hundred yards from the Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom, where Marashi Najafi was a cleric, as well as being near his own tomb. The cost of the library was at first personally financed by its  founder and his descendants; but, beginning in 1997, the library began to be funded as a governmental institution, under Resolution 205 of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, with its operation still overseen by Marashi Najafi's family, but in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once remarked that, "the library of Ayatollah Marashi Najafi is an unparalleled library and perhaps unrivaled in Iran". The library contains books in at least 30 different languages, including Turkish, Urdu, and Arabic. The possession, maintenance, and showcasing of Hebrew books once surprised some American and British rabbis , who were guests of the Iranian government, and who had allotted 3 hours of time to visit Qom. One rabbi said that he imagined that, Qom being the center of the revolution, Hebrew books would be burned and the ashes scattered to the wind; but he saw that, instead, such works were given the same respect as Muslim books, and that Jewish prophets were well regarded. So charmed were the rabbis that they devoted the entire time of their stay in Qom to visiting the library.