Maktabat Makkah al-Mukarramah / Bayt al-Mawlid, Historical library near Masjid al-Haram, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Maktabat Makkah al-Mukarramah is a cream-coloured two-storey building with a flat roof and a parapet, set among wide squares near the Masjid al-Haram. Its upper floor has four rectangular windows with dark brown louvred shutters; a pale stone sign with Arabic and English text sits above a recessed carved wooden door reached by stone steps. The library occupies a rectangular footprint of 24 by 13 metres and rises ten metres, with three facades and four corner rooms around a central hall.

The library was formally established in 1951 (1370 AH) on the site where Muhammad is believed to have been born in Rabi' al-Awwal, circa 570 CE. King Abdulaziz ibn Saud built it after consulting senior scholars, and Sheikh Abbas Yusuf Qattan oversaw the new building. The Kirdi library, developed from 1927 by Sheikh Muhammad al-Kirdi, was bought as its founding collection.

The library keeps over ten private collections of Meccan scholars and writers of the 14th Hijri century, each shelved in a hall bearing the owner's name, among them Muhammad Majid al-Kurdi and Abd al-Hamid Quds. Its holdings also include early printings and rare newspapers such as al-Qibla, Hira and Sawt al-Hijaz.

The library stands in the Shab Banu Hashim area east of Wadi Ibrahim, and its west facade faces the Masjid al-Haram; it is now the only building left standing there, surrounded by open squares. The main entrance is up a short flight of stone steps to a recessed double wooden door. Researchers should ask staff about the separate rooms named after the private collections.

The library was the first public library in the Hejaz to computerise its catalogue: the project was proposed in 1992 by Abbas Salih Tashkandi and carried out from 1994 with the heirs of Sheikh Muhammad bin Laden, using fifteen graduate students from Umm al-Qura University over six months.