By IINA
Riyadh : King Fahd Holy Quran Printing Complex in Madinah, which boasts of translating the holy book into nearly 50 foreign languages, is among the six winners of King Abdullah International Award for Translation. The awards were announced at a ceremony attended among others by King Abdullah at King Abdul Aziz Public Library here last night. Announcing the winners, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, adviser to King Abdullah and member of the board of the King Abdul Aziz Public Library, said that translation is a bridge to other cultures and plays a great role in the advancement of civilizations and societies.
The Translation Award in Natural Science was jointly awarded to Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Muhaidib from Saudi Arabia for his Arabic translation of “Geotechnical Engineering: Soil Mechanics” by John N. Cernica and Dr. Ahmed Fouad Basha from Egypt for his Arabic translation of “The Odd Quantum” by Sam Treiman — a book on the modern theories of physics. No award was given for the Translation Award in Natural Science from Arabic into Other Languages due to a lack of quality in submitted entries. The Translation Award in Humanities and Social Sciences was jointly awarded to Dr. Abdulsalam Al-Shaddadi from Morroco and Dr. Claudia M. Tresso from Italy.
Dr. Abdulsalam Al-Shaddadi won for his translation from Arabic into French “Muqadimat Ibn Khaldun, Kitabu Al’ibar”, which is considered one of the most circulated and widely read intellectual works in the field of humanities. Dr. Claudia M. Tresso won for her translation from Arabic into Italian of Ibn Batuta’s travelogue which is considered an important source of comparative historical studies. The Translation Award in Humanities and Social Sciences from Other Languages into Arabic was given to Dr. Salih Sadawi Salih from Egypt for his translation of “Mistr’da Turkler ve Kulturel Miraslari” by Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), from Turkish into Arabic.
Winners in each of the award’s five categories received SR500,000 each. In all, the award’s organizers, the King Abdul Aziz Public Library, received 186 submissions in 16 languages from over 30 countries. The award, which was instituted in 2006 upon King Abdullah’s request to promote high standards of translations, contributes to the transfer of knowledge from and into Arabic, promote translation into Arabic in various fields of science and enrich the Arab archive by publishing distinguished works of translations. The award also aims at recognizing the achievements of institutions with outstanding contributions in the field of scientific translations from and into Arabic.
The Translation Award for Institutions was awarded to the King Fahd Complex for Printing of the Glorious Qur’an, which had been nominated by several government and non-government organizations for the huge number of distinguished works that it administers.
“The Complex won for their great value and quantity of distinguished works of translation it administrates, and funds,” said Saeed Al-Saeed, head of the scientific committee of the award. “The complex is one of the most prominent establishments that contribute greatly to the translation of the Quran, presenting translations into 50 Asian, European and African Languages,” said Saeed.
In addition to their translation efforts, the Complex has also organized a symposium on the different translations of the Qur’an and established a translation center. The center encompasses a number of specialized units that study and conduct analytical research projects with the intentions of providing more refined translations of the Qur’an and excluding those of lesser quality or of lower precision. The Center has established a network for translators in different languages and built a comprehensive and easily accessible database for translations of the Qur’an in many languages. Along with translation and publishing the Holy Qur’an, the Complex also publishes a reference journal of scholarly articles on translations of the Sunnah and related issues.