How Ayatullah al-Uzma Najafi Marashi Established the Library?

One prominent scholar and authority on Islam called Ayatullah al-Uzma Sayyid Mar’ashi established a famous library in the city of Qum. He did this with his own personal effort by toiling hard for many years. Libraries play a very important role in causing awareness to the people, giving the people a good hobby and pass time, to spread good virtues, to be a source of pleasure, for the preservation of our culture and for the continuation of our culture and knowledge. It is due to all these reasons that our scholars toiled hard to establish public and private libraries and preserved valuable and ancient manuscripts in it. I will relate some examples which will touch our emotions and find in front of us a man of great caliber and cause us to question ourselves as to why we don’t exploit our potentials. The doors of this library were opened since 1394 A.H. Sayyid Mar’ashi didn’t get much financial assistance in establishing this library. In many of the books in this library I have seen a caption in which the Sayyid has written that he bought the particular book in question by praying and fasting on behalf of people who had died and whose relatives paid for these acts of worship. This is called ‘Salaat of Istijara’. This prayer is incumbent on the eldest son of a dead man to pray or fast or go to pilgrimage on behalf of his dead father in case the dead man did not perform these acts. The son may pay somebody reliable to perform these acts. How great are these scholars who used each and every opportunity to do something which would help them in the life Hereafter. Sayyid Mar’ashi bought some great and rare books by praying on behalf of the dead, and sometimes a sum total of two years prayers in conditions of hunger and extreme fatigue. (Qasas Wal Khawatir page 238)