As part of the celebration of Arab and International Culture Days, the International Book Fair was held at the Sharjah Exhibition Centre under the motto “A Word to Peace”.
The 41st Sharjah Book Fair was attended by 2213 publishers from 95 countries around the world, including 1298 Arab and 915 foreign publishing houses. There were also a number of cultural events, seminars, presentations and art evenings.
The festive atmosphere during the opening ceremony was enhanced by the Flag Day celebrations – exhibition halls and corridors were decorated with flags of the United Arab Emirates, the national anthem and folk songs were played.
The exhibition pavilions displayed 1,5 million copies of books on a wide range of topics in different languages, covering the world of science and art and the history of the Middle East, which major regional libraries and museums are increasingly interested in.
For instance, Peter Harrington Publishing presented a collection of more than 100 books and manuscripts covering the period from 100 AH to the present day, including an ancient Byzantine Bible in the Arabic language, a page from a rare IX century Quran, and a manuscript with the earliest images of Mecca and Medina.
The books on display included the only copy available on the world market of the brief and controversial first chapter of Lawrence of Arabia’s famous book “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, worth £65 000, in which the author sets out his thoughts on what he saw as betrayal of the Arab people.
The collection also includes one of Avicenna’s oldest manuscripts, dating from 1493 AD.
Apart from the galleries featuring books reflecting the cultural diversity of the UAE, the exhibition displayed rare Islamic manuscripts.
The collection of rare manuscripts on display includes some excerpts from the Holy Quran that were transcribed in the XV and XVI centuries AD, the manuscript “Ravdat al-Ulb, Tuhfat al-Ahbab and Nuhba al-Ahsab” by Ibn Muqid (al-Muayyad), which contains the genealogical tree of the Prophet and dates back to 1675, “Ad-Dur al-Mandud fi Ajaab al-Wujud”, a manuscript on cosmology, part of Firozabadi’s “Dictionary of the Ocean”, one of the most famous dictionaries of the Arabic language, transcribed in 828 AH, a manuscript on the sciences of the Quran, “Kashf al-Faqih Seven Readings” by Makki bin Abi Talib al-Qaisi, dated 1279 AD, and a short manuscript entitled “Misbah al-Muhajid” by Muhammad bin al-Hasan al-Tusi, written in 1051 AH.
The exhibition also offered visitors a chance to peruse the book “History of the Arabs under the Caliphs”, published in 1753 by author François Ogier de Marigny, and the book “The New World Book of Pharmacy” by Antonio de Cropes, published in Venice in 1667, which includes recipes for pharmaceutical preparations and ideas from the Arab medical heritage.
The main hall also hosted the “Blessed Poetry and Creative Writing” exhibition which showcased a collection of outstanding manuscripts of the Quran from the collection of Hamid Jafar, which he collected over forty years ago. This exhibition showcases the stages of Arabic calligraphy through manuscripts of the Holy Quran.
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