Cairo witnesses the official inauguration of the 'H.H Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Project'

The ceremony was attended by H.E. Grand Imam Dr. Mohammed Sayed Tantawy, The Sheikh of Al Azhar, and Mr. Ahmad Bin Byat, Director General of the Dubai Technology, E-Commerce and Media Free Zone, on behalf of H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence, and Dr. Abdullah Al-Karam, Executive Director of the Dubai Knowledge Village and Manager of the H.E. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Information Technology Education Project, entrusted to implement the Azhar scripts preservation project.

This project aims to preserve the rare scripts contained in Al Azhar, one of the world's oldest and most prominent universities, and to protect the scientific and historical heritage contained therein and to enable these treasures to become accessible on the internet to users and scholars the world over. Adding further value to the project is the fact that the constant restoration of these scripts is an extremely costly process and one which does not, unfortunately, always lead to the correct preservation of those important documents.

The project's budget is 5 million USD, the entire sum having been graciously provided by H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, reflecting his interest in preserving this important heritage for all mankind through the use of modern technology. His Highness has always emphasized the importance of utilizing technology to implement the cultural, intellectual, social, and economic development of the Arab and Islamic Worlds.

On this occasion, H.E. the Grand Imam stated that "the launch of this large project reflects the spirit of cooperation and brotherhood that binds the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and the strong and long-lasting ties that have always united the two brotherly peoples."

The Grand Imam also praised Dubai's positive contribution in making this cooperation possible as evident by this project which came about as a noble initiative by H.H the Crown Prince of Dubai to preserve Al Azhar's heritage, which is actually a heritage for all the Islamic World.

The Grand Imam emphasized that "the launch of a website that serves as the Islamic World's voice to the world and sheds light on the true picture of Islam and the enlightened spirit of its followers is an important step in the present and also for the future of the coming generations."

For his part, Mr. Ahmad Bin Byat, Director General of the Dubai Technology, E-Commerce and Media Free Zone, conveyed H.H. the Crown Prince of Dubai's greetings to the attendees on the occasion of launching the project. He also conveyed His Highness' appreciation of the efforts that lay behind the launch of this great project and specifically to The Grand Imam Dr. Mohammed Sayed Tantawy, The Sheikh of Al Azhar and to the project's work, placing great value on their contribution to launching this project which aims to preserve a valuable scientific heritage and to give millions of people worldwide the chance to view and benefit from its content.

At the same time, Mr. Bin Byat stressed the project's value, stating that "this initiative is one of the positive results of the close cooperation that has always existed between the brotherly peoples of Egypt and the UAE. During H.H's visit to Al Azhar several years ago, General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum gave instructions to launch this project in order to preserve the cultural treasures contained in Al Azhar and to make them available online not only to Arab and Muslim nations, but to the entire world. This stems from H.H.'s firm conviction that human heritage is for all mankind, especially if this heritage brings tangible benefits."

He added that "H.H The Crown Prince of Dubai places a great deal of emphasis on the individual, upon whom God almighty bestowed the gift of mind and science, which was the first of God's gifts to be mentioned by the Islamic religion, the first verse of the Koran having commanded the Prophet Mohammed - Peace Be Upon Him - to "Read! In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher Who Created." And perhaps there is no greater evidence than that of the lofty importance of science and the value of preserving it and working to spread it."

Mr. Byat also emphasized the important role technology has come to play in human lives, saying that "digital technology has opened the door to mankind to achieve goals which may in the past have been mere dreams. Today however, we witness together the realization of a dream which would not have been impossible to achieve without the special and highly-capable technologies developed specifically for this project," stating that Dubai and the UAE were proud to have participated in this important preservation project.

He also stated that "today's event reflects the vision of H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his optimism regarding a bright future for Arabs and Muslims, and his desire to protect the important cultural and intellectual heritage that belongs to the Muslim World and which is considered one of the essential foundations of Muslim individuals worldwide."

Dr. Abdullah Al-Karam, Executive Director of the Dubai Knowledge Village and Manager of the H.E. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Information Technology Education Project, entrusted to implement the Azhar scripts preservation project, talked about some of the project's details, saying that "this project aims at providing electronic copies of all the contents of Al Azhar library, which is composed of around 42,000 scripts and 128,000 books, and to post all these documents online on the world wide web."

He added that the project is the biggest of its kind in the world. "This is a unique project both in terms of its size, being the biggest scanning project worldwide or the age of the documents being scanned. Special technologies were used for the first time ever in this giant project," he said.

He added that, in accordance with the agreement between the two parties, the project involved running a large number of trials throughout a month prior to the launch, during which Al Azhar library engineers were trained to operate the site and run it themselves, indicating that so far the project has scanned nearly 14,000 scripts including 900,000 pages. Furthermore, implementing the project required that special scanning technologies be used, and IBM developed special scanners that guaranteed that the scripts wouldn't be negatively affected by the scanning process. These scanners also operated at high speed, necessitated by the large number of documents that require scanning. The scanned image is an identical match to the original.

Dr. Al Karam expressed his confidence in Al Azhar employees' ability to efficiently handle the project, especially having had received the necessary training to manage it and continue in the scanning process.

Worth mentioning is that this project began in the year 2001 upon the instructions of H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence after meeting with H.E Grand Imam Dr. Mohammed Sayed Tantawy, the Sheikh of Al Azhar, and deciding to allocate 5 million USD for the project.