RIYADH, 11 April 2005 — On behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, presented awards to this year’s winners of the King Faisal International Prize at a glittering ceremony held here last night.
A number of princes, Cabinet ministers, diplomats, senior government officials and other dignitaries attended the presentation ceremony held at the Prince Sultan Hall in the Al-Faisaliah complex here. Earlier, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, director general of the King Faisal Foundation and chairman of the King Faisal International Prize Board, welcomed Prince Sultan and the guests.
The Prize for Arabic Language and Literature was withheld as none of the entries qualified for the prestigious award.
Each winner of the award received SR750,000 ($200,000) in cash, a certificate outlining the laureate’s work and a commemorative 22-carat gold medallion.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Abdullah Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the King Faisal International Prize, cited Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, president of the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, and the Al-Hariri Foundation of Lebanon as the joint winners of the 2005 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam.
He said Dr. Ali was awarded the prize in recognition of his achievements in the field of Islamic banking. As president of the IDB, he had not only consolidated the conformity of banking transactions with Islamic laws but also set an example of successful and modern Islamic banking.
He also established a comprehensive infrastructure within the bank, including the Islamic bank portfolio, investment shares, Islamic investment institution, Islamic research and training institute, prize for Islamic economics and many others.
In his acceptance speech, the IDB chief referred to the challenges facing the Islamic Ummah, both from within and outside. He said two of the major challenges were the attempt to misrepresent Islam as a “kernel of terrorism.”
“ Another very important challenge is poverty and illiteracy that prevail in most Islamic countries, and the backwardness in different fields of science and technology, as revealed by current international and local economic statistics,” he said.
Dr. Ali announced that he had decided to donate his monetary share of the prize to serve as a nucleus for a fund, under the auspices of the Islamic Development Bank, to establish an annual prize for best achievement in promoting trading cooperation between Islamic countries.
Lebanon’s Al-Hariri Foundation was recognized for its promotion of education and culture. So far, it has supported college education of nearly 35,000 students. It has also built schools and colleges throughout Lebanon and, in its efforts to preserve Islamic architecture, refurbished ancient mosques in that country.
Accepting the award on behalf of his late father, Bahauddin Rafik Hariri thanked the King Faisal Foundation for the honor bestowed on the Al-Hariri Foundation. He said the award underscored his father’s belief that Islam combines benevolence and mercy with moral and economic development of mankind.
Professor Carole Hillenbrand of the University of Edinburgh was awarded the Prize for Islamic Studies. She was cited for her pioneering research, specifically her revolutionary approach to the largely one-sided subject of the Crusades. The citation said she has sought to clarify several misconceptions about Crusades, thereby making it possible for history to be viewed from a more balanced and impartial perspective.
Describing the award “as a jewel in our crown”, she said it would help to promote a better understanding of the Islamic world in the West. Carole observed that recent enrolments in Arabic and in Islamic studies at Edinburgh had seen a dramatic and unprecedented increase. “So the time is ripe for educating a new generation that is hungry to know more about other cultures,” she observed.
The Prize for Medicine went to Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto of the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) at Oxford University. They were honored for their pioneering epidemiologic research that has unequivocally established the link between tobacco and various diseases, such as vascular diseases and cancers.
“Indeed, so great has been the impact of their studies that several national health policies have been modified as a result of these findings. The World Health Organization (WHO) itself changed its position on smoking which culminated in a demonstrable decline in deaths related to cancer and atherosclerotic vascular diseases in several developed countries,” according to the citation read out by Dr. Al-Othaimeen.
Thanking KFF for the great honor, Professor Doll said his joint research with Sir Richard had established that when the public began to give up smoking following an awareness campaign mortality rates throughout the UK dropped and many premature deaths were averted.
In the science category, Professors Federico Capasso, Frank Wilczek (USA) and Anton Zeilinger (Austria) shared the prize for their distinguished contributions in their respective fields.
