Islamic manuscripts which are found in the National Library and Central Archives of the state of Albania are part of the treasure, carefully preserved by the Albanian people for centuries. These manuscript which are in existence today have faced many dangers in the past and presently.

The content of those manuscripts facilitate studies that reveal the circumstances in which they were written, and more importantly the role played by the manuscripts in the cultural and spiritual life of Albanians of that time.

There are eight hundred copies of the manuscript known to us today, written in Arabic, Turkish and Persian language. Among them, we find works which date back to XIV century.

The Persian manuscripts are literature texts which include mainly poetry. They comprise the works of well – known authors such as Sadiu, Fuzliu, Edib Tiblis, etc. While the Arabic and Turkish ones highlight religious, judicial and philosophical themes.

However, they also offer literary works, especially linguistic texts, also writings on the sciences of nature. The first among the religious texts are the Holy Qur’an, its interpretations, Maulud (the birth of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.s), religious advises, saying and so on. The judicial texts place in importance, the Shari’ah which deals with issues such as the distribution of estate. The philosophical works are more concerned with the problems of ethics and logic, among them is the book by Ibn Sina titled "Kitab al – isharat" which dates 890 A.H.

Many of the manuscripts are written by famous authors from East such as Ibrahim Halebin, Ibn Malek, Sayyid Ali, Ahmed Djaheroh and many others. Besides them, we also find works of many Albanian authors who are very competent in religious, philosophical and juristic problems of that time. This is clearly indicated by the fact that Albanian literature was written in Arabic alphabet at that time. Many of those manuscripts stand unique as they differ from others in the form of calligraphy, illustrations and artictical ornaments.

A considerable number of those manuscripts were given to the collection owned by the Bushatlies family, who were the possessors of Skodra at that time. The above indicates that Islamic culture was in existence. The Bushatlies’ collection of Kara Mahmud and Mustafa Pasha Bushati which are found in the library is an example of the link which clearly exist between the Albanian people and Islamic culture and science.

The manuscripts which are available to us today are all that remains, and have been passed down through the hands of people over time. Many intellectuals are responsible for their preservation.

Since the fall of the Ottoman State until today, the significance of the Islamic culture was mitigated. Even Muslim leaders, intellectuals and clerics were ignored. Many of their works were destroyed and have disappeared, even-though, in actual fact many of the authors were important Muslims scholars.

Before the democratic reform in Albania, all of them without exception were seen as result of this, some of their works remain undiscovered and thus cannot be accurately estimated.

Islamic culture is part of the Albanian culture and has determined the political and cultural development of Albania. Sadly, negative tendencies rule out any positive aspect of the Islamic culture. Reason are found to destroy it and many fields of knowledge are also ignored totally, such us: philosophy, logic, linguistic, astronomy, mathematics, rhetoric and others. The unsympathetic stance of communism against religious works or works with religious connotations resulted in the oriental languages, e.g. Albanian literature written with Arabic alphabets were targeted more than works written with other alphabets.

After the fall of Ottoman State, Islamic civilization took a back seat. Eastern civilizations faced nihilism. This is evident by the sheer fact that the Renaissance only upheld the West. But our great Renaissance scholars defended Eastern civilization. A good example would be Shamsuddin Sami Frasheri, he never forgot our link with the East. This rings true whenever someone mentions the great work of Shamsuddin Sami Frasheri "Kamus – I ul – alam " or his book titled "Islamic Civilization", which is a clear dedication to this renowned civilization.

There was a period where religious institutions were ruthlessly subjected to demolition by the communists. It is during this period that many Islamic manuscripts were destroyed as well. It was almost impossible to save those texts; even manuscripts written in secular characters were doomed. Part of this wave of destruction is the disappearance of Muslim gravestones which were imperative as sources of studies, revealing some parts of Albanian history which can never be found otherwise.

It is clear that great injustice has been committed. Materials of great value have been cast aside, considered "en bloc", without any further investigation religious materials were immediately assumed to be unworthy and

uncontributive. No prior studies were carried out, any work with a religious, philosophical, ethnical or judicial character was condemned. Both religious and secular literature written in oriental languages await to be studied and scientifically exploited to the fullest.