Beit Al Hikma in Sharjah has hosted the opening of the exhibition 'Manuscripts: Identity and Sustainable Development', as part of a cultural tour launched by UAE University across a number of cultural institutions and destinations in the country to mark its golden jubilee and its scientific and intellectual legacy spanning five decades since its founding.
The exhibition aims to highlight the scientific and civilisational value of manuscripts and their vital role in documenting humanity's journey of inquiry, discovery, scientific advancement, and community building.
The opening was attended by His Excellency Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh, Cultural Adviser to the President of the State and Supreme President of UAE University; Marwa Al Aqroubi, Executive Director of Beit Al Hikma; Dr Ahmed Ali Al Raisi, Chancellor of UAE University; Dr Ali Hilal Al Naqbi, Chancellor of University of Khor Fakkan; and Dr Todd Laursen, Chancellor of the American University of Sharjah, in addition to students from UAE University and a number of guests and enthusiasts of scientific and cultural heritage.
Over 10 days, the exhibition offers visitors to Beit Al Hikma an exceptional opportunity to discover 50 rare scientific manuscripts from UAE University's collection, spanning authored works, treatises, and didactic poems that shaped the contours of Arab and Islamic civilisation across the fields of Quranic sciences, Arabic language and literature, astronomy, medicine, engineering, mathematics, and other disciplines.
The exhibition is divided into three sections reflecting the diversity of scientific fields that flourished in Arab and Islamic civilisation. The first section covers Quranic sciences and Arabic language and literature, including the arts of expression, writing, poetry, rhetoric, and literary criticism, as well as grammar, morphology, and other branches of the language.
The second section shines a light on astronomy and celestial sciences through manuscripts documenting scholars' interest in studying the heavens, the movement of celestial bodies, and the development of observation techniques, mathematical calculations, and models. The third section is dedicated to theoretical and applied sciences, presenting manuscripts that reflect the richness of scientific knowledge in the fields of medicine, mathematics, engineering, chemistry, agriculture, and other disciplines grounded in observation, experimentation, and documentation.
The exhibition takes visitors on an intellectual journey spanning nearly five centuries of scientific and intellectual output, revealing the interconnection between various scientific disciplines and their contributions to society. It offers an opportunity to explore pages from the history of authorship, manuscript copying, and learning, and to encounter the ideas and discoveries that enriched human civilisation — reflecting the central place that knowledge has held in the building of people and societies throughout the ages.