The Managing Director of Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, Mr Sali Shahsivari, and the working team at Al-Furqan welcomed Mr Firdavs Abdukhalikov, Chairman of the World Society for the Study, Preservation, and Popularisation of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan, and Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Electronic Mass Media, and the accompanying Uzbek delegation. Along with Al-Furqān Foundation staff, Mr Shahsivari warmly greeted the visiting Uzbek delegation, expressing his delight, and noting that it was a glad occasion to receive them at the Foundation’s HQ. Indeed, he felt honoured by this highly symbolic visit, and expressed the shared confidence that this was an important step towards cementing the relationship and collaboration between the two organisations.
In turn, the head of the Uzbek delegation praised the Foundation’s Managing Director and staff for their warm reception and generous hospitality. He added that the principal purpose of the visit was their interest in strengthening cooperation and relations between the two organisations. Furthermore, they wished to become acquainted with the veteran experiences of Al-Furqān Foundation in the domain of protecting and promoting Islamic heritage. He also emphasised the importance of the shared interest between them in exchanging visits and experiences, as well as benefitting from the successful and pioneering endeavours of Al-Furqān Foundation in the area of protecting heritage; furthermore, exchanging a variety of scientific publications related to areas of shared interest, as well as catalogues, books, periodicals, and scientific publications; all of this, in the context of a strategic collaborative framework between the organisations.
During the introductory session of the extended meeting, the Managing Director, Mr Sali Shahsivari, gave the visiting delegation a brief overview of the role played by Al-Furqān Foundation.
In turn, Mr Firdavs Abdukhalikov gave an overview about the World Society for the Study, Preservation, and Popularisation of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan, by mentioning the most important projects and activities currently underway to protect their ancestral heritage, and to strengthen, encourage, and support scientific achievement through organising international conferences, seminars, and visits; drawing attention to the large number of rare sources relating to the cultural heritage of the Uzbek people, held in museums, scientific research institutes, exhibitions and archives in different countries around the world. Indeed, Uzbekistan is actively searching for these, with the aim of repatriating them to Uzbekistan, within the frame of a media project, “Uzbekistan’s Cultural Heritage”.
Mr Abdukhalikov also emphasized his interest in working together with Al-Furqān Foundation in the immediate term to develop joint projects and initiatives that establish and open new horizons in work to protect and enhance heritage.
The visit’s programme included introducing the visiting delegation to Al-Furqān library’s special collections, and the library’s digital portal, focusing on the manuscript collections relating to Uzbekistan, through a comprehensive survey of manuscript heritage.
On the occasion of this visit, the Foundation had organised a mini-exhibition of its publications in the building reception, comprising different materials relating to Uzbek heritage, including authored works, references, manuscript catalogues, and critical editions of books by al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, al-Zamakhsharī, Abǖ Mu‘īn al-Nasafī, Najm al-Dīn Kubrī, al-Mātrīdī, al-Naqshabandī, Ibn Sīnā, al-Fārābī, al-Farghānī, Abu al-Rayḥān al-Birǖnī, al-Khawārizmī, al-Marghinānī, al-Samarqandī, al-Qafāl al-Shāshī, al-Rāzī, and others.
At the end of the visit, the Uzbek delegation leader gifted Al-Furqān Foundation with the encyclopaedic work, “Architectural Epigraphy of Uzbekistan” (10 volumes).
In turn, Al-Furqān Foundation gifted the complete set of the “Encyclopaedia of Makkah Al-Mukarramah and Al-Madīnah Al-Munawwarah” (9 volumes), a copy of the Qur’ān belonging to al-Sharīf al-Sayyid Muḥammad Fāḍil al-Mawlawī, known as Fadil Paşa Şerifovic, containing the seven canonical readings, as well as the book “The House of Khadija bint Khuwaylid (God bless her) in Makkah”, the collections of Ibn al-Haytham, al-Qǖhī, and others in Analytical Mathematics between the 3rd and 5th centuries (5 volumes), the book “Geometry and Dioptricts in Classical Islam”, and the English version of “The Mechanical Corpus of al-Isfizari in the Sciences of Weights and Ingenious Devices”.
