Arabic Millenary Manuscripts: 
a Living Testimony to the Profoundness of the Arab Culture

The second day witnessed insightful presentations on the Arabic millenary legacy all over the world. It was initiated by the fifth session on the millenary manuscripts in the British Library. Three manuscript specialists from the Library of Alexandria reviewed the Arabic millenary manuscripts held in the British Library in the fields of philosophy, literature, Islamic religion and science.

The sixth session opened with a brief speech on Arabic heritage addressed by the chairman, Dr Abdel-Sattar El-Hawlagi. Dr Radwan El-Sayyed traced the development of Islamic jurisprudence reviewing its assorted schools in the period between the 9th to 11th centuries. Following, Dr Mahmoud El-Masri treated millenary manuscripts of Hadith. He surveyed various phases of tradition narration and recording as well as the most significant works on traditionists' rules of sound of narration and Hadith studies. The session was concluded by Dr Faysal El-Hafyan's paper on the problems of the millenary manuscripts on grammar, its origins, founders and means of recording it. 

The seventh session, chaired by Dr Radwan El-Sayyed, reviewed the Arabic millenary manuscripts in Iran and Spain. Dr Ali Akbar Enayati's paper introduced the oldest manuscripts kept in the central library of the University of Tehran. Then, Dr Mohamed Soliman presented a strenuous study on the Arabic millenary manuscripts at the Escorial monastery. He gave a brief introduction to the history of Arabic manuscripts in Spain, the Escorial monastery and the means of acquiring the Arabic manuscript collections in the monastery's library. 

The eighth session, chaired by Dr Abdullah Youssef El-Ghoneim, started with Dr Ali Mirmohades analysis of an Andalusian millenary poem: Darj al-Ghurar wa Durj al-Durar. Afterwards, Dr Ahmed Shawqi Benbin described codiocologically the millenary Magribi codex. He presented some samples from various Moroccan libraries. 

The recommendations of the second and final day of the conference included: making facsimiles of Arabic millenary manuscripts accessible for all researchers, forming a deeper awareness of the importance of studying rare manuscripts, and paying more attention to classification of sciences and their branches.


Dr Youssef Ziedan made the closing address thanking all participants for their scholarly contributions and presentations which reflected the significance of millenary manuscripts as a living testimony for the profoundness of the Arab culture.