IRCICA Newsletter Issue 72

EditorialAt our Centre, the past three months were full ofmemorable events: H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, PrimeMinister of the Republic of Turkey, has kindly acceptedthe IRCICA Award for Patronage of Inter-CulturalDialogue, an award expressing our gratitude to H.E. thePrime Minister for His seminal initiatives contributing tointer-cultural dialogue on global scale and His patronageof IRCICA’s various activities aimed at contributing tosuch dialogue. This award has been newly institutedand presented for the first time. As known, IRCICAwas conducting the Award for Excellence in Research,presented on four occasions since 1990, and the Awardfor Patronage in the Preservation of Cultural Heritage andPromotion of Scholarship, presented twice since 2000. TheIRCICA Award for Patronage of Inter-Cultural Dialoguereflects one of the priorities of the Centre: we havedevoted a large number of activities to the study of theinter-cultural exchanges, civilisations’ borrowings fromeach other in various fields of knowledge and production,and the ways and means of promoting a permanent andfruitful dialogue between them; these activities are carriedout under the different research programs and projectscomprised in our work plans.During the same period, we were most honoured by thevisits of two other heads of state and government to ourpremises. On 2 February 2007, the President of Tatarstan(Russian Federation) H.E. Mintimer Shaimiev paid a visitto IRCICA. During the ceremony held on this occasion, aCooperation Agreement was signed between the Ministryof Culture of Tatarstan and IRCICA, formalizing thecultural cooperation going on in various areas.More recently, on 5 April 2007, His Highness SheikhNassir al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah, Prime Ministerof the State of Kuwait, visited our Centre, together with adelegation comprising Advisors to the Prime Ministry.It was another memorable day in the history of ourCentre and an excellent occasion for an appraisal ofthe achievements made in the cooperation betweenthe governmental authorities, cultural and art circles ofKuwait on one hand and IRCICA on the other since theearly 1980s.And on 28 April 2007, H.E. Bülent Arınç, Speaker of theTurkish Parliament, visited IRCICA. This first visit ofMr. Bülent Arınç to our Centre gave us the occasion tobrief him on the activities of our Centre and our libraryand documentation services to researchers interested inIslamic history, art and culture.As was reflected in our previous issues, IRCICA hadorganised the first International Congress on IslamicArcheology in April 2005, under the patronage of H.E. Mr.Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of the Republic ofTurkey. Among the follow-up activities held within thisframework, we had organised a Kyrgyzstan Cultural Weeklast Summer which underscored mainly the archeologicalriches of Kyrgyzstan. Recently IRCICA housed anotherevent within this framework, devoted this time to thecity of Isfahan, a historical city in the Islamic Republic ofIran well known for its architectural riches and Islamiccultural heritage. The musical concerts, the exhibitions oftraditional handicrafts, documents and illustrations onthe archeological and the architectural heritage of Isfahandrew great interest from press and public. IRCICA shallcontinue to organise cultural weeks jointly with the OICmember countries. These events also revive the spirit thatwere created by the Islamic Countries Cultural Week,the wide-scope cultural festival that had marked the25th anniversary of IRCICA, back in November 2005.Meanwhile, we shall soon begin preparations towardsthe second congress on Islamic archeology, in accordancewith the decision taken by the first congress instituting itas a triennial academic event.We are receiving applications for the First InternationalCongress on Islamic Civilisation in Central Asia to beheld in Kazakhstan next September. It will be followedby the congress on Egypt in the Ottoman Era, to takeplace in Egypt in November 2007. Also, we are pleasedto announce in greater detail in this issue the themesand modalities of the International Congress which willmark the 100th anniversary of the Second Constitutionwhich was proclaimed by the Ottoman State in 1908. Thecongress will take place in May 2008.Another main headline in the present issue of theNewsletter is the Seventh International CalligraphyCompetition which is now finalized. The results of thecompetition were announced to the interested circlesat a press conference held at IRCICA on 7 April 2007.1616 works were received for this competition by916 participants from 38 countries. The country-wisedistribution of award winners is diversified, and thisdiversity can be observed under each of the style categories– the fourteen most widespread styles. FollowingIRCICA’s tradition of dedicating each competition toa well-known master of classical calligraphy, in orderto commemorate his achievements and make themknown to the present generations of calligraphers, thecompetition was dedicated this time to the memory of theIraqi calligrapher Hashim al-Baghdadi, whose biographyis included in the present issue. As was done after eachof the previous competitions, a catalogue of the winners’works will soon be published by IRCICA.As usual, you will find summaries of the texts of thelectures delivered at IRCICA by specialists from variousfields of Islamic studies. Thank you for your interest.Dr. Halit ErenJANUARY-APRIL 2007, NO: 72 Newsletter 1