JEDDAH, 4 June 2005 — The history and future of the Muslim world and Europe will be focus of an international conference to be organized jointly by the Riyadh-based King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) and the Institute for Relations Between Italy and African, Latin American and Middle Eastern Countries (IPALMO) in Rome.
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom who is also chairman of KFCRIS, on Thursday wrapped up a visit to Italy during which he discussed the prospects of holding the conference and enhancing cooperation between the two organizations, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
“The aim of our visit was to enhance cooperation between the Islamic world and the West in general and between KFCRIS and Italian research centers in particular,” Prince Turki told a reception held by the institute.
There are treasures of knowledge related to the Islamic world at Italian libraries and research centers, he said. “Our center will continue to cooperate with other countries and research centers and we are now holding talks with the Italian institute to hold a conference on the history and future of the Islamic world and Europe,” Prince Turki said. He did not say where and when the conference would be held.
Established in 1983, KFCRIS is one of the largest research centers in the Middle East. It aims to promote and preserve Islamic heritage by organizing annual exhibits at the center. It also organizes lectures, conferences and symposiums, of both general and specialized nature, on issues vital to Islam and to Muslims.
The center’s main library has room for more than one million books. With its current inventory of 90,000 titles in 160,000 volumes, as well as 250,000 abstracted articles, this library is a vital resource for scholars. Its children’s library contains more than 18,000 books and magazines and 300 audio-visual cassettes in Arabic, English and French.
“The center has undertaken the challenging mission of locating, authenticating, acquiring, or copying, and indexing all known Islamic manuscripts worldwide,” the official website of the center says. The center has nearly 23,000 hand-written texts, some of which are more than 1,200 years old.
