Whenever His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah launches an initiative, we immediately realize that it must by the harbinger of a progressive project aimed at nurturing the Arabic culture and save it from destruction or perceived destruction by the relentless globalization.

In fact, by launching the first volumes of the Historic Lexicon of the Arabic Language, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, has provided the Arab nation with the long-awaited castle and sword with which to fend off its fears for its embattled language. This project, which was but a dream in the recent past, is now a reality that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the love for the Arabic language is not just a helpless yearning confined to the heart, but a passion capable of a huge achievement in the form of a lexicon that documents, for the very first time, the history of the vocabulary of the Arabic language and the evolution of its uses over 17 centuries (since the pre-Islamic period until the present day and age)

The mission of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah since the very beginnings of his cultural project has always been to realize that elusive dream of his Arab nation and bring it to the cultural fore.

That is why the messages launched by his highness through every possible cultural forum and event have become the most awaited by all those who have an undying love and a burning passion for the Arab culture and the Arabic language.

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, having before brought the Arabs together through many a previous cultural project, is now unifying the sons of this great culture that spanned the years from the Pre-Islamic Period before the dawn of Islam through the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, the age of states and emirates until the present-day modern age, in a quest for the realization of their most cherished dream”.

The world has almost come to the belief that the Arabic language is a moribund tongue specially with many non-Arabic speakers flocking to the Arab countries and introducing therein many incomprehensible terms and vocabulary words that have gradually become a daily used language spoken by all people, young and old, inadvertently relinquishing the sweetness and beauty of the Arabic language and replacing it with a mongrel language that once brought the tears to the eyes of Hafez Ibrahim, the poet of the Nile, who lamented the apparent sterility of the Arabic language according to the accusations of some, but the Arabic language has never and will never be so. With many currently advocating the abandonment of the Arabic language because of its alleged difficulty, the need has never been more urgent for a lexicon that will become the ultimate reference and the final haven for the scholar, the linguist, the researcher, the student, and the man of letters. There is even a greater urgency for raising the awareness of the nation of the importance of the Arabic language and the need to protect it.

This lexicon, as His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah firmly believes, will not merely explain the meanings of the words, their respective significance or list the dates when they were first used, but will rather protect the history of the Arab nation from imminent extinction, preserve the Arab culture from destruction, immortalize the days and exploits of the Arabs and preserve the Arabic memory from the Arabic Peninsula in the east to the Atlantic ocean in the west.

The lexicon shall serve as a historical record of texts and poetry, a register of the news and sayings of Muslims from Mesopotamia to the far reaches of Asia and a repository of the history of Muslim Africa that has long been home to many illustrious scholars of Malki jurisprudence and Arabic linguistics. This is indeed a dream come true and a long-awaited sun rising from the heart of Sharja. Indeed, it is the face of the Arab culture and its unerring compass.

Source: Al Khaleej Newspaper - Dr. Bassema Younis