The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Award for Arabic Language, Mohammed Al Murr, honored the French Arabist André Mekel, who was chosen by the award to honor the distinguished personality award given to those who served Arabic and Arabic culture with outstanding and influential efforts.
This came during a ceremony held at the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Paris after it was impossible to attend Dr. Mekel to the UAE to honor him at the ceremony held in Dubai to honor the winners of the award in its fifth session.
The ceremony was attended by many Arab cultural figures living in Paris, along with Orientalist André Mikel, his daughter, publisher and a number of his friends.
André Mikel delivered a short speech in which he mentioned the story of his attachment to the Arabic language, literature, literary and intellectual heritage, and thanked the UAE and the Mohammed bin Rashid Award for honoring the Arabic language.
Mohammed Al-Murr delivered a short speech in which he mentioned the efforts of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in supporting Arabic language, literature and those interested in it. He noted the great efforts exerted by the Arab inmate, Andre Mikkel, in the service of Arabic and Arab heritage in France, and expressed his sympathy with the French people for the tragic fire incident at the historic Notre Dame Cathedral.
He was born in southern France in 1929, completed his studies at the High School and studied Arabic at the hands of Orientalist Blachir. After graduating from Damascus and Beirut, he worked at the French Institute for Arab Studies. He worked in Ethiopia for two years in the mid-1950s. When he returned to France to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs He was appointed cultural adviser to France in Egypt in 1961 and taught Arabic literature at French universities since 1968. He worked at the Universities of Vansan and the New Sorbonne. He then served as Director of the Institute of Languages of India, East and North Africa and its Civilizations at the University of Paris III before he was elected Professor of Literature In the Collège de France in 1975 and in 1984.
Mikel was elected director of the National Library in Paris. It was the first time that a specialist in Arab and Islamic studies had chosen this high position. In 1986, Mikel returned to Collège de France and was elected president in 1989. During this scientific journey he continued his related proposals in the field of Arabic literature To the French and presented to the general educator or by giving him lectures in Arab universities in precise Arabic language and under the supervision of the scientific messages of Arab students in French universities.
He has many books, including «The World and the Countries: Studies in the Human Geography of the Arabs» and «Encyclopedia of the Geography of the House of Human Islam» in addition to the modern translation of the Thousand and One Nights, Kalila and Damnah, and translated the poems of Qais ibn al-Maluh and Badr Shaker al-Sayab, And articles on Arab literature and Islam in French magazines and periodicals.