The Vatican Apostolic Library has set aside a small area where Muslim researchers can perform their prayers during their visits. This decision was confirmed by Fr. Giacomo Cardinali, vice-prefect of the Apostolic Library, who stated that Muslim scholars had requested a modest space to pray.
The library has agreed to their request, providing a carpeted room for that purpose. The library houses a vast collection of manuscripts, including “incredibly old Qurans,” alongside Hebrew, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Chinese works, reflecting its universal scope. The Vatican Library, founded in the mid-15th century, is one of the most important research libraries in the world, serving scholars from across the globe regardless of religious background.
The revelation that Muslim researchers have been granted a dedicated room with a prayer rug inside the Vatican Apostolic Library has stirred debate over the limits of openness in one of the Church’s most symbolic institutions.
The disclosure came not through a press release, but in a casual remark during an interview with «La Repubblica» on October 8. “Of course, some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet to pray, and we have given it to them,” said Father Giacomo Cardinali, vice-prefect of the Apostolic Library.
For some, the move reflects an admirable spirit of dialogue and respect for those who come from afar to study ancient manuscripts. For others, it represents a troubling confusion of mission and identity. “A library is for reading, not for worship,” one Catholic commentator wrote, echoing a concern quietly shared by many in the Vatican’s own academic circles. Adding to the paradox, Cardinali described the library in the same interview as “the most secular of all Vatican institutions,” calling it “a humanistic institution.”
The remark has left some observers wondering how such self-definition fits with the decision to provide a space explicitly designated for religious practice — and for a religion other than Catholicism.
Founded in the 15th century, the Vatican Apostolic Library has long been the beating heart of Catholic scholarship, a repository of both faith and intellect. Its vast collection — two million printed books, 80,000 manuscripts, 50,000 archival documents, and hundreds of thousands of coins, engravings, and medals — includes treasures from nearly every civilization and creed. Among them are some of the oldest surviving copies of the Qur’an, as well as rare Hebrew, Coptic, and Chinese texts. Cardinali emphasized this universal scope as a point of pride. “We are a universal library,” he told «La Repubblica». “We hold Arabic, Jewish, Ethiopian, and Chinese collections of unparalleled richness.” In that sense, the small prayer room could be seen as an extension of this universality — an act of courtesy toward scholars who come not as pilgrims, but as researchers. Yet the question remains: can a Catholic institution extend hospitality in this way without blurring the lines between welcome and witness? Critics argue that creating a designated prayer space, even as a pragmatic accommodation, risks signaling a kind of religious equivalence — a symbolic step too far in the age of interreligious sensitivity.
