RIYADH, 9 March 2008 — In order to promote understanding among civilizations, Prince Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah, adviser to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and member of the board of the King Abdul Aziz Public Library, announced the winners of the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Award for Translation” in a ceremony held here yesterday.
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 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 nongovernment organizations for the huge number of distinguished works that it administers.
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 for his translation of “Muqadimat Ibn Khaldun, Kitabu Al’ibar” from Arabic into French.
The other winner was Dr. Claudia M. Tresso from Italy for her translation of Ibn Batuta’s “Tuhfat Alnodhar fi Ghara’ib Alamsar wa Aja’ib Alasfar” from Arabic into Italian.
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 Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu from Turkish into Arabic.
The board at the King Abdul Aziz Public Library decided last year to establish an international prize in King Abdullah’s name to highlight the concept of translation as a means of improving understanding among civilizations — something mastered by the Arabs hundreds of years ago.
“We hope the announcement of the prize winners will help promote dialogue between the Arab world and other cultures,” said Faisal ibn Muammar, general supervisor of the King Abdul Aziz Public Library.
He added that the prize would help impart knowledge from other languages into Arabic and vice versa, particularly the rendering of scientific research into Arabic — something that would boost scientific research in the Arab world.
Bin Muammar said that work on translations in the Arab world still had some way to go. “The reality is that Arabs have not learned from their past, which emphasized translation and its direct link to the development of civilization,” he said, adding that the translation process in the Arab world today suffers from stagnation.
“UNESCO reports state that Greece alone translates double the entire translation volume of all the Arab countries put together,” he said. “As for Spain, it translates five times the volume that the whole Arab world translates together.”
