Today, Sunday, January 28, 2023, the works and sessions of the ninth Conference on Translation and Problems of Culture opened, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the Qatari capital, after it was held electronically through the Zoom program for the previous two years due to the conditions of the Corona pandemic, so that the activities of the conference will reconvene in person for two days, with the participation of about 150 scholars. Academics and translators.

The Director of the Arab and International Relations Forum, Dr. Muhammad Hamed Al-Ahmari, started the activities with an introductory speech introducing the conference and clarifying its objectives. The first day’s sessions began with the title: Arabic/Turkish translation, followed by personal translation, then translation and digitization presently, and this day concluded its four sessions under the title: Translation Variations.

Arabic and Turkish translation

In the first session, participants presented rich literary and linguistic research in the field of Arabic-Turkish translation.

It was moderated by Halit Eren, Professor and Head of the Research Center at Rumeli University in Istanbul, founding member of the International Union for Turkish-Arab Dialogue and former Director General of the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The session began with a research by Muhammad Chelik, translator, researcher, winner of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding, member of the faculty at the College of Islamic Sciences, Sultan Muhammad Al-Fateh University, entitled: The efforts of the Ottomans in the translation movement from Arabic into Turkish and its most important characteristics.

It was followed by a research by Burhan Koroglu, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Graduate Studies) Ibn Khaldun University in Istanbul, and Professor of Islamic Philosophy there, entitled: The Role of Translations from Arabic in the Framework of Efforts to Strengthen Links with Islamic Culture and Thought in Turkey, and the Implications of Muhammad Abed Al-Jabri’s Project for Criticism of the Arab Mind .

Dr. Muhammad Hamid Al-Ahmari delivered an introductory speech introducing the conference and its objectives (Al-Jazeera)

Then Aysel Argül Keskin, Professor and Head of the Department of Arabic Translation, Istanbul Aiden University, researcher in the field of Arabic literature, titled: The reality of translation from Arabic literature into Turkish language during the last decade, then researched Mehmet Hakki Sotschin, translator, researcher and professor in the Department of Arabic Language, Gazi University in Ankara. Titled: The Problems of Balancing Form and Content in Translating Classical Poetry: The Translation of the Seven Mu'allaqat and Yunus Emre as a Model.

The session concluded with a research by Saud Yusuf Akyuz, a researcher in Ottoman history and the history of Arab-Turkish relations, a lecturer at Yıldırım University in Ankara, entitled: On the translation movement from Turkish into Arabic and the role of Turkish institutions: reality and challenges.

It is noteworthy that the conference also has the participation of academic figures in the field of research and translation from various countries, such as Hassan Nazim, the former Iraqi Minister of Culture, Professor of the UNESCO Chair for Dialogue at the University of Kufa, George Gregory, President of the International Association for the Study of Arabic Dialects (Paris) and Professor at the University of Bucharest (Romania), Abdul Salam bin Abd Al-Aali, writer, translator, and professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Rabat, Morocco. Shukri Mujahid, former head of the National Center for Translation (Egypt), and professor of English and comparative literature, Ain Shams University. Qatari academic, journalist and writer, associate professor of grammar and morphology at Qatar University and media advisor for the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding.