Category: Arabic Language Contributions

8 Arabic Colloquial Words That Were Originally Ancient Egyptian

Did you know that many of the Egyptian colloquial words Egyptians use on a daily basis are not actually Arabic?

The Egyptian Arabic dialect is fundamentally Arabic, but with the influence of history and local populations, some of the peculiarities that set the Egyptian dialect apart come from the integration of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Coptic words and expressions. Surviving for thousands of years, many commonly used, modern-day Egyptian words and phrases can actually be traced back to the current dialect’s ancient predecessors.

Here are some examples of words Egyptians use, often not knowing their ancient origin, as per the books ‘From Pharaoh’s Lips’ (2003) by Ahmad Abdel-Hamid Youssef, and ‘Al Logha Al Masrreya Al Qadeema’ (Ancient Egyptian Language, 2012 ) by Abdelhaleem Nour El-din.

UMBU (DRINK)

Often, in communication with infants or toddlers, broken down or simplified words are used to allow the news speakers to express themselves without too much difficulty. For example, umbu is the word commonly used by Egyptian children to express their thirst. The ancient Egyptian term simply means “from the water”.

TA TA (STEP BY STEP)

When Egyptian parents try to help their crawling baby how to walk, they use the phrase “ta ta” derived from the ancient Egyptian word “ti ti”. Though Arabic became the primary language in Egypt, the Coptic language was initially still being used in everyday life for the majority of the population. The term “ti ti” was adopted by the Coptic language and modified to “ta ta”, which is used until today.

MAMM (FOOD)

The word Mumm is an Egyptian slang word derived from the ancient Egyptian “my wnm”, which means ‘give to eat’. Many Egyptians, until this day, teach their babies to say “mumm” whenever they are hungry — as it is easy and quick to sound out.

DAHYA TIWADDIH AL AMENDI (MAY A DISASTER SEND HIM TO HELL)

The Egyptian phrase “Dahya tiwaddih al amendi”, is originally ancient Egyptian. The word “amendi” is a Coptic word meaning “hell”, which was derived from the ancient Egyptian word “imntt”, meaning the ‘underworld’.

BIKH (BOO!)

The word “Bikh!”, meaning “Boo!”, is often used in modern day Egypt to sneak up on someone and scare them. The term is an ancient Egyptian word “pa akh” meaning “demon” or “ spirit”.

WAHAWY YA WAHAWAY IYUHA (THE MOON HAS APPEARED)

The Egyptian phrase “Wahawy ya Wahaway iyuha” is part of a song Egyptians sing during the holy month of Ramadan. Families and young children swing their fanoos (lanterns) as they sing the lyrics to Wahawy ya Wahaway iyuha. The popular lyric is believed to be inspired from the ancient Egyptian word “wah” meaning ‘to put’ or ‘appear’, and “iyah” meaning “moon”. Thus, comprising the lyric “the moon has appeared” during the month of Ramadan, which is decided upon according to the lunar calendar in Islam.

KRKR (LAUGHING)

The word “krkr” is used frequently in modern Egyptian day to describe someone who is laughing uncontrollably. The term is originally ancient Egyptian “ķrķr” and was adopted into modern day Egyptian society.

GATEK MAW (MAY A LION FETCH YOU)

The phrase “jak maw” or “gatek maw”, often switched depending on the region it is used in, essentially means “may a lion come to you”. The phrase is an Egyptian expression used as an insult. The ‘maw’ is based on a pun on the words “lion” and “mother”. The expression is often used by mothers bothered by their children.

source/content: egyptianstreets.com

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EGYPT

WORLD RECORD: EMIRATES (U.A.E) : NYU Abu Dhabi Research Scientist to Publish the World’s First Arabic Mars Atlas

NYU Abu Dhabi research scientist Dr. Dimitra Atri has produced the world’s first ever Mars atlas in Arabic, Emirates News Agency reported.

The atlas uses data from the UAE’s Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) — also known as Hope or Al-Amal — in order to make the findings of the probe more accessible to both the UAE’s Arabic-speaking population and the rest of the world.

The Mars Atlas Project combines various images from the Hope probe to map the planet’s surface.

The end result is a comprehensive view of Mars and stunning images of a planet that once had similar atmospheric conditions to Earth.

Dimitra Atri used data from UAE’s Hope probe to map the red planet.

Atri and his team compiled the atlas by processing observational data from EMM’s Emirates eXploration Imager, one of three instruments onboard the orbiter. The device will also assist the team in showing how the planet changes over the course of one Mars year, which is roughly equivalent to two Earth years.

As more data from the Hope probe becomes available, the atlas will be gradually updated.

The data will help scientists gain a better understanding of the planet’s atmospheric thinning, which has caused it to cool and dry over the last 4 billion years.

Atri predicts that the collected data will be used to answer unsolved scientific questions about the erosion of Mars’ atmosphere.

The findings could help the international scientific community to better understand Earth’s atmospheric processes, he said.

source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)

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ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (U.A.E)

7th edition of ‘Cairo International Biennale of the Arabic Calligraphy Art’ 07- 20 June. A Simultaneous 3-day Seminar on ‘Pioneers and Renovators in 100 Years (1922 – 2022)’

Cairo witnessed the seventh edition of the Cairo International Biennale of the Arabic Calligraphy Art under the auspices of Minister of Culture Ines Abdel-Dayem at the premises of Cairo Opera House.

Under the slogan ‘Pioneers and Renovators in 100 years (1922/2022)’, the biennale included a three-day seminar that ran from 6 to 9 June at El-Hanager Cinema that highlighted the most prominent figures of Arabic Calligraphy in Egypt and the Arab world as well as an art exhibition showcasing artistic gems of this Art from 125 countries represented by 15 artists at the Art Palace in the Cairo Opera House Complex that is running from 7 to 20 June.

This year’s biennale coincides with the announcement of Cairo as the Capital of Islamic Culture and only a few months after Arabic Calligraphy was added on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.  

Furthermore, the event established a new tradition of honouring artists and researchers for their achievements, and a side competition was held in the name of renowned Egyptian calligrapher Khedr El-Portsaidy — the founder of the Arabic Calligraphy Museum as well as the one who accredits and certifies Arabic calligraphers in Egypt.

In the opening session, Mohamed El-Baghdady — the general commissioner of the biennale — noted that this year marks the centenary jubilee of the establishment of Egypt’s first calligraphy school during the reign of king Fouad in 1922.

The session also included the presentation of a research paper written by Nahla Imam — country representative of Egypt at the 2003 Convention of Safeguarding the Intangible Heritage of UNESCO — who shared her experience in adding Arabic calligraphy knowledge, skills, and practice on UNESCO’s representative list of intangible cultural heritage in December 2021.

Mohamed Hassan Abu El-Khair — the first to innovate the ‘mashq’

The second day of sessions showcased the pioneers and renovators of such enchanting art.

The first paper was presented by researcher and calligrapher Mohamed El-Shafaai on passing down the practice of such art in Egypt, taking the family of Mohamed and Abdel-Aziz Abu El-Khair as an example, as the two are renowned Egyptian calligraphers that this year’s round was dedicated to.

He started off by revealing that the concept of passing down this form of art dates back to the pre-Islamic era, explaining that the initial idea behind Arabic calligraphy was transcription, and then the artistic element came later.

“During the pre-Islamic era, except for a small circle, very little knew how to write Arabic, and according to Abdalla Ibn Abbas, the first person to begin writing in Arabic in the tribe of Qureish was Harb Ibn Umaya — one of the masters of the tribe and the father of Sufian Ibn Harb.

The other key person in calligraphy art was El-Wazir Ibn Noqla, who was famous during the Abbasid Caliphate and inherited the art from his father El-Ali Ibn Hassan, explained El-Shafaai.

Mohamed Hassan Abu El-Khair was born in Cairo in 1921, he studied in Al-Azhar and then joined The School of Improving Calligraphy when he was only 17, where he was the top of his class and was taught by calligraphy masters such as Sheikh Fakhr El-Din, Sheikh Ali Badawi, and Mohamed Hosni El-Baba — the father of iconic Egyptian actress Soad Hosni to name but a few.

He excelled in El-Sulus and Reqaa calligraphy and soon became a professor of the art of calligraphy at Oum El-Qoura University in Mecca for 20 years.

“He was the first to innovate in the mashq (an educational manual technique) of the solos of Arabic calligraphy that are taught to fourth graders, where he started teaching students to write whole sentences from the beginning instead of focusing on letters with no context,” El-Shafaai added.

Abdel-Qader Al-Shihabi — the calligrapher of the Palestinian government

The second paper focused on Abdel-Qader Al-Shihabi — a Palestinian calligrapher — that was written by Farag Hussieny. Al-Shihabi is a renowned Palestinian calligrapher whose fame reached its peak during the first half of the 20th century and was known as the ‘calligrapher of the Palestinian government.’

“Born and raised in Jerusalem, Abdel-Qader Al-Shihabi comes from a long line of calligraphers that started off this art between the 12th and 14th year of the Hijri calendar, however, Al-Shihabi learned calligraphy in Istanbul at the hand of Mohamed Ezzat, the biggest artist. He was known for his suluth calligraphy, which decorates the walls of Al-Aqsa Mosque to date. He also spent all his life teaching calligraphy in Jerusalem and encouraging young artists to follow his passion,” explained Hussieny.

Abdalla Al Zohdi: the calligrapher of Al-Haramein Al-Sharifine 

The third paper covered the ‘calligrapher of Al-Haramein Al-Sharifine (The Two Holy Mosques) Abdalla Al-Zohdi and was written by Sami Saleh Abdel-Malak.

“Born in Nablus, Abdalla Al-Zohdi was born around 1251. His family moved to Istanbul, where he studied and excelled in calligraphy at a very early age. His artistic fame made him the official calligrapher of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, where his calligraphy adorns the walls and ceilings of the mosque till now,” the paper explained,

“During the reign of khedive Ismail, he was commissioned to write the calligraphy of the Keswa of the Kaaba and Mahmal. His implacable calligraphy was quite visible and stood out in the design of the keswa from that day onwards. He was known by his highly complex and geometric Sulus calligraphy.”

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg (headline edited)

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EGYPT

Winners of the ’10th King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Awards for Translation’ Announced

The translators of books about culture, physics and data mining are among the latest recipients of the prestigious King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Awards for Translation.

This year’s event, covering works published in 2021, marks the 10th anniversary of the awards. There were six categories and the winners, chosen by the event’s board of trustees, were announced on Monday.

Izz ddeen Khattabi Riffi’s translation from the original French of “Beyond Nature and Culture” by Philippe Descola took the award for works in the humanities category translated into Arabic. It was shared by Abdelnour Kharraki for his translation of “Data Mining for the Social Sciences: An Introduction” by Paul Attewell, David Monaghan and Darren Kwong, originally published in English.

The award for institutions went to the publishing and translation department of Obeikan Company, and to Al-Arabi Publishing & Distribution.

There were also two winners in category for works in the natural sciences translated into Arabic, both for books originally published in English: Dr. Sausan Hassan Al-Sawwaf and Dr. Laila Saleh Babsil for their translation of “Physics in Biology and Medicine” by Paul Davidovits; and Yahya Khlaif and Abdullatif Al-Shuhail for their translation of “Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration” by Berend Smit, Jeffrey A Reimer and Curtis M. Oldenburg.

Three awards were presented in the category of Individual Efforts in Translation, to Hamza Qablan Al-Mozainy from Saudi Arabia, Murtazo Saydumarov from Uzbekistan, and Samir Mina Masoud Greeis, who is of Egyptian-German nationality.

The judges decided to withhold the awards in the two remaining categories, for books about the humanities and natural sciences translated from Arabic into other languages.

source/contents: arabnews.com (edited)

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EGYPTIAN / GERMAN / SAUDI ARABIA

18th ‘UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture (SPAC)’ Awarded to Dunya Mikhail and Helen Al Janabi. Simultaneously Celebrates the Winners of its 17th Session in Paris.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris held a ceremony for the 18th edition of the Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture (SPAC), organised by the Sharjah Department of Culture in cooperation with UNESCO.

The Prize has been awarded to Dunya Mikhail, an American-Iraqi poet, and Helen Al Janabi, a Swedish actress of Syrian-Iraqi origin.

Sheikh Salem Khalid Abdullah Al Qasimi, Deputy Secretary of State for Heritage and Arts Sector, UAE’s Permanent Representative to the UNESCO, along with Professor Mohammed Ibrahim Al Qaseer, Director of Cultural Affairs at the Department, in addition to dignitaries, writers, intellectuals and members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the United Nations.

Ernesto Otuni Ramirez, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture, gave a speech in which he expressed his gratitude and appreciation to H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and for his cultural and humanitarian renaissance role at the local, regional and global levels.

Afterwards, Abdullah bin Muhammad Al Owais, Chairman of the Sharjah Department of Culture, gave a speech in which he expressed his happiness at the continuation of the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture editions, appreciating the role of UNESCO in managing the prize and sponsoring many cultural programmes.

Al Owais and Ernesto Ramirez awarded the 18th Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture to Dunya Mikhail and Helen Al Janabi, in addition to honouring the winners of the 17th session.

source/content: wam.ae (edited)

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AMERICAN / IRAQI / SWEDISH / SYRIAN

Libyan Author Mohamed Alnaas Wins 2022 Arabic Booker Prize

Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table by Libyan debut novelist Mohamed Alnaas was announced as the winner of the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF).

The novel, published by Rashm, was named as this year’s winner by Chair of Judges Shukri Mabkhout during a ceremony in Abu Dhabi that was also streamed online.

In addition to being awarded USD $50,000, funding will be provided for the English translation of Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table, and Mohamed Alnaas can expect to see an increase in book sales and international recognition.

Shukri Mabkhout, Chair of the 2022 Judges, said: “The winning novel is written in the form of confessions of personal experience. Its plethora of details is deftly unified by a gripping narrative, which offers a deep and meticulous critique of prevailing conceptions of masculinity and femininity and the division of work between men and women, and the effect of these on both a psychological and social level.”

He added that the novel, falls into the category of novels which question cultural norms about gender; however, it is embedded in its local Arab context, and steers away from trivial projections or an ideological treatment of the issues, which would be contrary to the relativism of fiction and its ability to present multiple points of view.   

Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table is a unique story based in Libya. In the closed society of his village, Milad strives to live up to the definition of ideal masculinity, as his society views it. However, after all his best efforts, he fails to be ‘a man’, and after meeting his sweetheart and wife-to-be, Zeinab, decides to forget about this definition and be himself. Living at home, he performs the tasks which his society reserves for women, while Zeinab works and supports the family. Milad is unaware of how he is mocked in the village until his nephew breaks it to him. Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table questions static ideas of gender and champions the individual in the face of destructive ideas adopted by the majority. 

Mohamed Alnaas, is a short story writer and journalist from Libya, born in 1991. He obtained a BA in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tripoli in 2014, and his short story collection Blue Blood was published in 2020. Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (2021) is his first novel and he wrote it in just six months during lockdown and whilst Tripoli was under bombardment. He says writing the book was his “refuge from insanity” amidst the news of Covid and war.

At 34, Alnaas is the second youngest writer to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and the first Libyan. Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table was published with support from the Libyan Arete Foundation.

Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table was chosen by the judges as the best work of fiction published in Arabic between 1st July 2020 and 30th June 2021. It was chosen from a shortlist of six novels by authors from Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman and, for the first time, the UAE. The shortlisted finalists — Khalid Al-Nassrallah, Tareq Imam, Reem al-Kamali, Bushra Khalfan and Mohsine Loukili — will each receive USD $10,000.

The panel of five judges was chaired by Tunisian novelist, academic and previous IPAF winner (The Italian, 2015) Shukri Mabkhout. Joining him on the judging panel were Libyan doctor, poet and translator Ashur Etwebi, Lebanese writer and PEN International board member Iman Humaydan, Kuwaiti poet and critic Saadiah Mufarreh and Bulgarian academic and translator Baian Rayhanova.

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg

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pix: arabicfiction.org

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LIBYA

Winners of 2022 Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA)

The award saw a high turnout from authors around the world, with more than 3,000 applications submitted from more than 55 countries, including 20 Arab countries.

Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) announced on Monday the winners for its 16th edition across seven categories, selecting six literary figures, intellectuals and translators, along with Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina, for top honours.

Over the years, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award has managed to expand and become one of the most prestigious events in the Arab world, allowing for the development of cultural dialogue and the creation of new opportunities for authors and translators around the world.

This year’s winner in the young author category is Tunisian professor Mohamed al-Maztouri with his book Al Badawa fi al She’er al Arabi al Qadeem (Bedouinism in Ancient Arabic Poetry).

“The author of this book, Mohamed al-Maztouri, presents a serious academic study of bedouinism in ancient Arabic poetry,” the Zayed programme commented.

Adding that Maztouri “discusses its diverse concepts and many manifestations, describing it as a culture with special landmarks and a lifestyle inseparable from its place, environment, and geography.”

From pre-Islamic times the Arabian Peninsula has been home to world-class poetry that is deeply connected to values of bravery, nobility, eloquence and at times sensitivity.

Throughout the centuries, poetry’s popularity has only grown in the region, attracting new audiences in both the Arabian Peninsula and other Arab countries in North Africa and the Levant.

Today, the trend has been further boosted by Emirati initiatives and competitions.

The translation award went to Egyptian translator and author Ahmed Aladawi for his translation of the American author, George Makdisi, book “ The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West” into Arabic.

Each winner receives a life-changing prize of AED 750,000 (USD 204,190/GBP165,220).

Winners will also be honoured in a ceremony at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair later this year.

The Cultural Personality of the Year winner will be presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit, as well as a Dh1 million prize.

source/content: thearabweekly.com

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Full list of winners of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2022:

Literature

Maq’ha Riche, Ain Ala Massr (Eye on Egypt: Cafe Riche) by Maisoon Saqer. Published by Nahdet Misr Publishing

Children’s Literature

Loghz al Kora al Zujajiya (The Mystery of the Glass Ball) by Maria Daadoush. Published by Dar Al-Saqi

Young Author

Al Badawa fi al She’er al Arabi al Qadeem (Bedouinism in Ancient Arabic Poetry) by Mohamed Al-Maztouri. Issued by the Faculty of Literature, Arts and Humanities at Manouba University and the GLD Foundation

Translation

Nash’at al Insaniyat Einda al Muslimeen wa fi al Gharb al Maseehi (The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West) by Ahmed Aladawi. Published by Madarat for Research and Publishing.

Art and Literary Criticism

Al Sarid wa Taw’am al Rooh: Min al Tamtheel ila al Istinaa (The Narrator and the Soulmate: From Acting to Faking) by Mohamed Aldahi. Issued by Le Centre Culturel du Livre.

Arab Culture in Other Languages

The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures: Global Commodification, Translation, and the Culture Industry by Muhsin J. Al-Musawi. Cambridge University Press.

Publishing and Technology

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

source/content: thenationalnews.com

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EGYPT / MOROCCO / SYRIA /TUNISIA / U.A.E.

Morocco’s Youness Mustafa Gharbi Wins Quran Recitation Skill, Scent of Speech (Otr Elkalam)’ Category in the ‘Saudi International Holy Quran Competition ‘ 2022

Gharbi is one of a number of Moroccans who have won similar prizes.

Youness Gharbi is the latest in a list of other Moroccans to have claimed a prize for his Quran recitation skills, this time in Saudi Arabia.

Visually impaired Gharbi won the  “Otr Elkalam” competition on Wednesday, with a prize of SAR 5 million ($1.3 million).

He received his prize during a ceremony celebrating the completion of the international Quran reciting competition whose name is Arabic for the fragrance of speech. 

The Chairman of the board of directors of Saudi’s general entertainment authority , Turki Al-Seikh, delivered the prize to Youness Gharbi and another British contestant Mohamed Ayoub who came in second place. 

Mohamed Ayoub received an award of a little over half a million dollars.

In the call to prayer category, a Turkish contestant came in first place, Muhsin Kara, receiving SAR 2 million ($533,200), while another Turkish contestant Albijan Celik came in second place, winning a prize of SAR1 million ($266,600). 

Saudi contestant Anas Al-Rahili came in fourth place with a SAR250,000 ($66,650) award.

During the ceremony, the event organizers announced that the “Otr Elkalam” competition will open its doors for international Quran reciters during Ramadan next year. 

The “Otr Elkalam” competition was organized by the Saudi government’s General Entertainment Authority this month, to coincide with  Ramadan.

Moroccans are no strangers to winning  Quran reciting awards. In 2020, Five Moroccans won a Quran reciting competition award in Abu Dhabi during a virtual ceremony. 

Nearly all prizewinners of the Abu Dhabi competition were Moroccans.

Moroccan Fatima-Zahrae Mrabet claimed the first place in the women’s “All Nationalities” category, and Moroccan Kaoutar Zribi and Chaimae Lchab trailed behind respectively in second and third place.

Moroccan men equally distinguished themselves at the ceremony, with Anas Mhamdi ranking first in the men’s “All Nationalities” category and Abdellah Bela ranking third within a different category.

source/content: moroccoworldnews.com

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MOROCCO

Egypt’s Suhayr Al-Qalamawi, FIRST Woman to Obtain a Doctorate in Literature in MENA region

Suhayr al-Qalamawi is an icon of literature and politics in the Arab world in general and in Egypt in particular.

She greatly influenced cultural life in Egypt and the Arab world and it was her idea to establish the Cairo International Book Fair.

Qalamawi was born in Cairo, in a family that focused on educating their daughters. Her father was a surgeon and her mother spoke various languages. This upbringing helped her complete her education, and she graduated from the American College for Girls in 1928.

Her father also played a major role in developing her linguistic and cultural skills. She excelled reading the holy Qur’an with her father. Qalamawi’s father also owned a library where she was able to feed her infinite hunger for reading.

She was able to benefit from her father’s vast library of works at an early age, and it seems that writers such as Taha Hussein, Rifa’a al-Tahtawi and Ibn Iyas greatly contributed to her literary talent and shaped her voice as a writer.

Her father encouraged her to specialize in Arabic literature, and she became the first young girl to attend Cairo University and the first woman among 40 men to study Arabic literature. After obtaining a Master of Arts, she then received a scholarship to conduct research in Paris for her Ph.D. in 1941. After the completion of her doctoral thesis, she became the first woman to obtain a doctorate from Cairo University.

During her educational career, she was influenced by a number of personalities, most notably the dean of Arabic literature Taha Hussein, who was head of the Arabic language department and editor-in-chief of the Cairo University Magazine at the time. He made her assistant editor-in-chief of the magazine in 1932, and Qalamawi became the first woman to obtain a permit to practice journalism in Egypt.

Suhayr al-Qalamawi started her career after graduation as the first female lecturer at Cairo University in 1936. Soon she became a university professor and later the head of the Arabic language department between 1958-1967, in addition to becoming the president of the Egyptian Feminist Union.

She became the president of the Egyptian General Authority for Cinema, Theater and Music in 1967 and the head of the Child Culture Society in 1968. Qalamawi was also the head of the administration of the General Egyptian Book Organization, from 1967 to 1971, and the head of the censorship authority from 1982 to 1985.

In addition, Qalamawi was able to make outstanding contributions within the cultural field. During her tenure as head of the General Egyptian Book Organization, she worked to expand the range of readers, encourage young writers, and advance the book industry in 1967. From here, she established the first book fair in the Middle East, which is the Cairo International Book Fair in 1967.

Suhayr al-Qalamawi’s contributions were not limited to the cultural community, but she also contributed to the struggle of women, in order to preserve their rights through her literary works, in addition to her participation in many conferences on Arab women, and in 1960, she was the president of the International Conference on Women.

Furthermore, Qalamawi’s journey was also full of political work, and the beginning was when she entered politics as a member of Parliament in 1958 , and was nominated again in the period from 1979 to 1984.

Qalamawi’s career was crowned with a number of awards, as she was awarded the Arabic Language Academy Award in 1954 and the State Appreciation Award in Youth Literature. She also received the State Encouragement Award, the State Appreciation Award in Literature, The First Class Order of the Republic, the Medal of Achievement, and an Honorary Doctorate from the American University in Cairo.

After an enriching career, Suhayr al-Qalamawi passed away in 1997.

source/content: egypttoday.com (edited)

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EGYPT

Winners of 2022 King Faisal Prize Awards Honored in Riyadh : March 2022

Awards made for services to Islam, Arabic language, literature, medicine, and science.

The winners of this year’s King Faisal Prize on Tuesday received their awards at a glittering ceremony staged in Riyadh.

The annual gongs — held under the auspices of King Salman — are the most prestigious in the Muslim world and recognize outstanding achievement in services to Islam, Islamic studies, Arabic language and literature, medicine, and science.

The service to Islam prize was jointly awarded to former Tanzanian President Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Egyptian scholar Prof. Hassan Mahmoud Al-Shafei.

The Arabic language and literature award went to Prof. Suzanne Stetkevych and Prof. Muhsin Al-Musawi from the US.

American Prof. David Liu secured the medicine prize while the science accolade was shared by Prof. Martin Hairer of the UK and Prof. Nader Masmoudi of Tunisia.

The Islamic studies prize, that this year focused on the Islamic heritage of Al-Andalus, was withheld because the nominated works did not meet the necessary criteria.

Mwinyi was honored for actively participating in Islamic advocacy and promoting religious tolerance. He established Islamic schools and translated many resources and references in hadith, jurisprudence, and the Prophet Mohammad’s biography into Swahili, the language spoken by millions of people in East Africa.

Al-Shafei, who was president of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo from 2012 to 2020, held several academic positions and established a series of institutes concerned with Al-Azhar. He also contributed to the establishment of the International Islamic University in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

The Arabic language and literature prize was jointly presented to Stetkevych, chair of the department of Arabic and Islamic studies at Georgetown University, and Al-Musawi, professor of Arabic and comparative literary studies at Columbia University.

Stetkevych’s extensive research and numerous works have analyzed Arabic literature with unmatched depth from the pre-Islamic period to the Nahda/revivalist period. Her research approach, which is characterized by its application of varied methodologies, resulted in the renewal of the critical perspective and methods of studying classical Arabic poetry.

The research and studies of literary critic and novelist Al-Musawi have had a great impact on Arabic studies students and researchers in the Arab world and the West, through his distinctive methods of presentation, analysis, critical interpretation, and openness to Arab and international creative texts in prose and poetry.

Meanwhile, the medicine prize concentrated on gene-editing technologies. Its winner Liu, director of the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, invented the first so-called base editor to make alterations on DNA and genes by replacing letters in the DNA base.

Hairer, chair in probability and stochastic analysis at Imperial College’s mathematics department, was one of the science prize recipients. His work has been in the general area of probability theory with a focus on the analysis of stochastic partial differential equations. He recently developed the theory of regularity structures which gave a precise mathematical meaning to several equations that were previously outside the scope of mathematical analysis.

The other joint science award winner, Masmoudi, a professor of mathematics at the New York University of Abu Dhabi, unlocked the mystery surrounding many physics problems which have remained unsolved for centuries.

He found a flaw in (Leonhard) Euler’s mathematical equations, which for more than two centuries had described the motions of fluids under any circumstance. Masmoudi discovered that the equations did not apply to all circumstances, as previously thought, and his findings helped to solve a raft of conundrums related to fluid-modeling, such as weather predictions.

Each winner received a $200,000 prize, a 24-carat gold medal, and a certificate written in Arabic calligraphy signed by the Chairman of the prize board, Prince Khalid Al-Faisal.

source/content : arabnews.com (edited)

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Winners of 2022 King Faisal Prize awards honored in Riyadh. (SPA)

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SAUDI ARABIA / EGYPT / TANZANIA / TUNISIA