RIYADH, 10 March — On behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, yesterday presented the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam to Sheikh Sultan ibn Muhammad Al-Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah.
The presentation ceremony, held at the plush Al-Faisaliah Hall, was attended by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, governor of Asir and director-general of the King Faisal Foundation, princes, Cabinet ministers and distinguished invitees. Security arrangements were tight, with the area around the KFF complex declared off-limits to public vehicles.
Other recipients of the award included two professors from Syria and Jordan as the co-winners of the King Faisal International Prize for Arabic Literature for the year 2002, while a Swedish and an American professor picked up the prize for medicine.
A Russian professor and an American scientist jointly received the prize for science (Mathematics). The KF International Prize for Islamic Studies was withheld, as none of the nominated works met the criteria for selection. The topic for this year was “Objectives of Islamic jurisprudence.” The citations were read out by Abdullah Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of King Faisal International Prize.
Each of the five-prize category consists of a certificate, hand-written in Diwani calligraphy, summarizing the laureate’s work, a commemorative 22-carat, 200-gram gold medal and a cash endowment of SR750,000. Co-winners in any category share the monetary grant.
King Faisal International Prize is credited with the distinction of producing quite a few Nobel Prize winners, the most notable being Dr. Gerd Binnig (German) who received KFIP for physics in 1989 and became a Nobel laureate for chemistry in 1999.
Earlier, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, in his welcome speech, referred to the hostile media attack on the Kingdom and said the King Faisal International Prize bears a message of friendship and affection. “It is an invitation to the entire world to comprehend the values of our civilization, and appreciate our culture that reveres knowledge and celebrates those enriching it, regardless of gender, color or race.”
Expressing his pride and confidence in the Islamic heritage and its cultural values, Prince Khaled summed up his message to the world: “We are with you... as partners and not as followers.”
Sheikh Sultan ibn Muhammad Al-Qasimi was cited for his support to numerous educational, social, health care and housing projects that have benefited Muslim communities throughout the world. A philanthropist, he had relentlessly emphasized the values of Islam and spared no effort in implementing its teachings.
In his acceptance speech, Sheikh Al-Qasimi thanked the King Faisal Foundation for the honor conferred on him.
He said: “Our values and beliefs derive from the teachings of Islam, and whatever we accomplish is dedicated to the cause of that religion.”
The citation for the winners of the King Faisal International Prize for Arabic Literature named Professor Husam Al-Din Al-Khateeb (Syrian), professor of Arabic Literature, Damascus University, and Professor Husni Mahmoud Hussain (Jordanian), professor of Arabic Literature at Al Yarmouk University.
It said the awards were in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the study of contemporary Palestinian literature, including critical studies and biographies of several modern Palestinian poets and novelists.
In his acceptance speech, Professor Husam paid tributes to his late father and other great mentors for sowing the seeds of scholarship and learning. “I cannot forget for one moment the tragedy of my own people in Palestine, which was a driving force behind all my works together with the Arabic cultural environment of Syria.”
The acceptance speech of Professor Husni Mahmud Husain, who died a few weeks ago, was read out by his son, Dia Al-Din Husni Mahmud Husain. He said his father had devoted himself to the poetry of Palestinian resistance movement and the works of prominent Palestinian poets, novelists and literary critics.
Professor Yuri I. Manin (Russian), director of the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics, Bonn (Germany) shared the Prize for Science (Mathematics) with Dr. Peter Williston Shor (American), a member of the research staff at the AT&T Shannon Research Laboratory in the United States.
Manin, described as a towering figure in the field of mathematics, is credited with doing research that has helped in laying mathematical foundations for present-day physical theories explaining the structure of matter and universe.
Thanking KFF for the award, he said mathematics also deeply influences the self-perception and everyday life of modern societies.
Shor was honored for his works in computer science. Not only did he establish links between the theory of numbers and that of quantum computers, but also conclusively prove that quantum computing could tackle highly intricate problems faster than contemporary computers.
Dr. Shor, while thanking the KF International Prize Committee, said the English word algorithm is derived from the name of the great Arab mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, who introduced the decimal numerals in the ninth century. “The word algorithm originally meant the procedures for performing arithmetic using decimal numerals, and later also came to mean procedures for performing other computations.”
The co-winners of the Prize for Medicine (topic: Pathophysiology of chronic heart failure) were Professor Finn Waagstein (Swedish), professor of Cardiology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden, and Professor Eugene Braunwald (American), professor of Cardiology, Harvard Medical School, USA.
Paying tributes to the Arab world for its contribution to medicine, Professor Waagstein said Arabic cultural influence extended from Spain in the west to India in the east, and from Transoxiania in the north to Yemen in the south, allowing a free flow of people and ideas using Arabic as a common language both for speech and writing. “Clinical medicine had achieved a high standard in the Arab world at a time when the old knowledge from ancient Greece, Hippocrates and Galenos, had been forgotten in Europe.”
Braunwald said epidemiological projections have shown that by 2020 cardiovascular disease will be the most common cause of death worldwide.
“It is due to the fact that while modern treatments may reduce early deaths from heart attacks or high blood pressure, these treatments do not cure the underlying conditions; they simply slow them and increase the fraction of the population at risk of developing heart failure.”
The King Faisal Foundation has announced that the topics for the 2003 King Faisal International Prize are: Medicine (Breast cancer); Science (Chemistry); Arabic Literature (Definitions of Literary and Critical Terms of Arabic Literature); Islamic Studies (History of Islamic Economics). The deadline for all nominations is May 31, 2002.
