RIYADH — Manuscripts are an important link between the past and the present and a reliable record of the heritage of civilizations, peoples and their culture. It also reflects the human's desire since ancient times to document, record and codify.

Since the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the land of cultural and civilized treasures, is gifted with profound historical and cultural weight in the world, it has become the home to thousands of valuable and rare manuscripts, which abound in its cultural institutions.

Embodying the Kingdom's keenness to protect its heritage through legislation and regulations that represents an important link in completing the structure of the cultural system, Saudi Arabia issued the regulation regarding the manuscripts' heritage through the Royal Decree No. (M / 23) dated (12/08/2001).

The vital role played by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, who had been advocating for the culture and intellectuals since he was the Governor of Riyadh Region, is viewed with pride and gratitude by nationals for his constant care in this regard.

It was King Salman, when he was Riyadh’s governor, who proposed the draft bill of manuscripts' heritage, fully cognizant of his responsibility as a general supervisor of King Fahd National Library.

Maintaining manuscripts heritage witnesses great support from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy prime minister and minister of defense.

The King Fahd National Library's endeavors over the past years has resulted in imaging of approximately 73,000 manuscripts after the library kicked off a scanning process for about 90,000 manuscripts.

The library also holds 6,000 original manuscripts and these collections are rare and precious. Among the rare and precious manuscripts being kept by King Fahd National Library is a copy of the Holy Qur’an written in Kufic script dated back to the 3rd century AH. It was written on parchment.

Another copy of Qur’an in Naskh script, probably dating back to the 10th century, as well as collections of extremely valuable books, manuscripts and documents with deep-rooted history are housed in this library.

In remarks to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Al-Rashed, secretary general of King Fahd National Library, explained that the library seeks through the Manuscripts Heritage Protection Regulation to register the original manuscripts held by sectors and individuals, by giving them a registration number and a certificate regulating the process of their ownership, transfer and preservation.

He confirmed that the library is working on the completion of scanning all the original manuscripts available in Saudi libraries across the Kingdom's regions for registration, codification and digitization, pointing out that the cooperation of the participating sectors contributed to "going an important and significant long way in preserving the national manuscripts heritage."

Moreover, he indicated that the library also provides services to individuals who are owners of the original manuscripts such as "sterilizing the manuscript to increase its longevity, extracting its name, its author and the date of its transcription as well as its details in terms of its cover material and its lengths."

"After completing the process of studying the manuscript technically, a registration certificate including its owner's name is issued that includes the manuscript's title, author and the date of transcription," he added.

Saudi Arabia is one of the largest Islamic countries in the world possessing manuscripts. Specialists in manuscripts describe the Kingdom's holdings of manuscripts heritage as "the heritage and cultural treasures that document the past by linking it to the present and the future."

The Kingdom's Vision 2030 has considered culture and national heritage as its main components, and the Cabinet’s recent approval of forming 11 specialized cultural bodies, including one for libraries and one for heritage reflects the leadership’s keenness in promoting cultural sectors.

On launching its vision and guidelines, the Ministry of Culture announced that heritage comes within 16 sectors on which they will focus their efforts and activities. — SPA