The curtain fell today, Sunday, on the activities of the "Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding" in its sixth edition, with the coronation of the winners of this session, which witnessed a heated competition between more than 300 participants, representing individuals and institutions concerned with translation from 42 Arab and foreign countries.
The global award, which was launched in 2015, is supervised by a board of trustees, a steering committee, and independent jury committees, to honor translators and appreciate their role in strengthening the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the nations and peoples of the world, rewarding excellence and creativity and encouraging the processes of mature literacy between Arab culture and the rest of the world's cultures, through translation activities Arabization, consolidating sublime values, spreading diversity, pluralism and openness, and appreciating individuals and institutions who contributed to spreading the culture of peace and spreading international understanding.
The award also encourages raising the level of translation and Arabization on the basis of quality, accuracy, and knowledge and intellectual value, enriching the Arab library with important works from the world's cultures, literature, arts and sciences, and enriching the world heritage with the innovations of Arab and Islamic culture.
The award is supervised by a board of trustees consisting of 5 to 10 members.
The council provides advice and advice, contributes to selecting foreign languages designated for the award every year, and participates in evaluating the administrative and scientific performance of the award.
The value of the award amounts to two million dollars, and in its sixth session for the year 2020, Persian was adopted as a second main language after English, and 5 languages in the achievement categories, so that the award categories for this season are:
Translation from Arabic into English.
Translation from English to Arabic.
Translation from Arabic into Persian.
Translation from Persian into Arabic.
Achievement award in the two main languages English and Persian.
Achievement Award categories in translations of selected languages to and from Arabic: Pashto, Bengali, Swedish and Korean.
Coronation of the winners
In a hypothetical ceremony to crown the winners, Hassan Al-Naama, Secretary-General of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation, said that the award has become a cultural landmark in the global cultural field, but because of the conditions that the world is experiencing as a result of the Corona pandemic, it was not possible to celebrate this occasion as before, especially. In this session we have made a great effort to diversify the fields of translation. "
Habiba Hassan won first place in the English-Arabic translation category for her translation of the book "The Republic of Literatures in the Middle Islamic Age", by Mohsen Jasim Al-Mousawi, and Muhammad Ghalim ranked second for translating the book "Language, Consciousness and Culture" by Ray Jakindoff, and the third place Hesham Ibrahim Al-Khalifah went to his translation of the "Oxford Dictionary of Handling," by Lian Huang.
In the category of translation from Arabic to English, translators Robert Myers and Nada Saab ranked first for translating selections from Saadallah and Nous’s works. After the second place was blocked, Jonathan Wright came third for his translation of the novel “Index” by Sinan Antoun, and in the third place was mafir Adel. Babiker on the translation of the book "Mansi: A Rare Man on His Way" by the late Sudanese novelist, Tayeb Salih.
In the category of translation from Persian into Arabic, Hassan Al-Sarraf won first place for his translation of the book “The Desert” by Ali Shariati, and in the first place, Mustafa Ahmad Al-Bakour, for his translation of the book “Zaydism in Iran” by Muhammad Kazem Rahmati, and after blocking the second place, he finished third. Basil Ahmad Adnawi for his translation of the book “History of Persian Literature” by Ahmad Tamim Dari, and in the third place, Sadiq Khorsha’s solution for his translation of “From the Past of Iranian Literature” by Abd al-Husayn Zarin Cope.
# Sheikh_Ahmed_ Award for Translation and International Understanding, in its sixth session 2020, in the
category of translation from Arabic into English
First place: Robert Myers - Nada Saab
for translating selections from Saadallah and Nous's works https://t.co/OITiXhXyGq pic.twitter.com/ZuWnRXoHjn
- Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (@HamadTAward) December 20, 2020
After withholding the first place in the category of translation from Arabic to Farsi, Sadiq Darabi came second for his translation of "Druze Belgrade" by Rabi` Jaber, and Amal Nabhani for her translation of "Frankenstein in Baghdad" by Ahmed Saadawi came in third place.
As for the achievement awards, they went to the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Roger Allan, Moussa Page, and Youssef Bakkar, respectively.
Regarding achievement awards in sub-languages, Kim Neuong Woo and Kim Jong-ah won in the Korean language, and in the Hausa language Muhammad II Omar Musa won, and in Bengali, Abdullah Maarouf Muhammad Shah Alam won, and in the Pashto language the Afghan Center for Media and Studies won.
In the dictionaries category, Najafali Mirzayi, Abdul Nabi Al-Qayyim and Tahseen Al-Taji Al-Faruqi won, while the Incentive Prize was awarded to Phoenix Publishing House.
Cross-fertilization
Since its first year, the award has taken upon itself to encourage translation from and into the Arabic language in more than one language, adopting an international language every year in addition to the English language, so the Turkish language was chosen in the first year, Spanish in the second, French in the third, German in the fourth, Russian in the fifth, Then the Persian language in the current session.
# Sheikh_Ahmed_ Award for Translation and International Understanding, in its sixth session 2020,
Category of Translation from English into Arabic
First place: Habiba Hassan Abdullah Hassan
on the translation of the book The Republic of Literature in the Middle Islamic Age
by "Mohsen Jassim Al-Mousawi" https://t.co/OITiXhXyGq pic.twitter.com/5wol9xuCEU
- Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (@HamadTAward) December 20, 2020
Throughout the ages in the Islamic world, translation has been a gateway to transfer knowledge from Arabic to other languages and back, starting from the House of Wisdom in Baghdad during the days of the Abbasid state and the translation efforts in Egypt, to the Muslim civilization in Andalusia.
The Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding also aims to revive this Arab and Islamic effort that stalled during previous stages of time for various reasons, to enable it to obtain all incentives for production and excellence, to open the doors of intellectual cross-fertilization to the various intellectual and literary productions of the other, and to make it a bridge for more human communication.
Qatar aspires, through this international award, to enhance the openness of the cultures of Arab and Islamic countries to the cultures of the countries of the world, and the exchange of human knowledge among them.