His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and Supreme President of the Arabic Language Academy in Sharjah, signed on Thursday morning the inaugural edition of the first phase of the Comprehensive Arabic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature, Arts and Notable Figures, at the Dr Sultan Al Qasimi Centre.
During his speech, His Highness emphasised that the launch of the first phase of the Comprehensive Arabic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature, Arts and Notable Figures marks the initial milestone of a project divided into four phases. He expressed great happiness with this achievement and its launch in conjunction with the World Arabic Language Day.
His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah and the attendees then watched a film presenting the content of the encyclopedia, which is divided into two main sections: the first focuses on science, literature, and arts, while the second is dedicated to biographies of notable figures and influential personalities throughout history. The film highlighted the first completed phase of the encyclopedia, which covers the fields of linguistic and literary sciences and their arts.
The encyclopedia encompasses ten disciplines: Arabic grammar (837 entries), Arabic morphology (398), rhetoric and its three arts (804), prosody and rhyme (174), phonetics (712), lexicography (298), linguistics (434), semiotics (208), discourse analysis (350), and literature and criticism (1,444).
The field of Sharia sciences and their arts encompasses 14 disciplines, namely: Qur’anic sciences, including Tajweed (271 entries), Qira’at (217), Tafsir (100), verse enumeration and division (150); Hadith sciences (1,041), narrator criticism and validation (al-Jarh wa al-Taʿdil) (488); Usul al-Fiqh (494); Maqasid al-Sharia (431); Islamic jurisprudence (2,612); Sharia judiciary (413); Islamic economics (1,398); the Prophetic biography (302); logic and dialectics (1,872); and spiritual purification and ethical conduct (2,933).
The second phase of the encyclopedia will present foundational disciplines in the humanities, as well as the theoretical and applied sciences, and will feature entries on leading Qur’an exegetes, linguists, Hadith scholars, rhetoricians, and poets from the Islamic and Umayyad eras, the Abbasid era, the era of regional states, and the United Arab Emirates.
The third phase will include notable scholars of Islamic jurisprudence from its various schools—Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanbali, Zahiri, and others—as well as scholars of Usul al-Fiqh, Maqasid al-Sharia, the Sharia judiciary, in addition to writers, literati, ascetics, reciters, philosophers, and historians.
The fourth and final phase will conclude with specialised and digital disciplines linked to the applied sciences, and will be enriched with profiles of notable figures, including the Companions, the Followers, caliphs, kings, and leaders, as well as physicians, pharmacists, biographers and scholars of the Sirah and Maghazi, orators, and leading figures of modern poetry.