RIYADH — Arab manuscripts represent a heritage and humanitarian treasure that is indispensible, and they are an important element that do not reside in a certain place, especially that most of them live in the major libraries and libraries of researchers, and once you read them, you would discover the legacy that Arab left for the world.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has paid much attention to efforts of preserving documents and manuscripts through establishing centers for preserving and archiving handwritten history, such as the National Center for Documents and Archive, the King Fahd National Library, the King Abdulaziz Library, and King Faisal Center for Research and Studies.

Saudi Arabia also ranks fifth in the classification of countries with manuscripts in the Islamic world and has its presence in the digitalization process of the manuscripts and e-storage and providing them for all researchers from across the world, and established several restoration factories specialized with restoring papers.

Asfar exhibition at the King Faisal Center for Research and Studies plays the role of shedding light on manuscripts and print material and highlighting the oldest and rarest among them through highlighting display cabinets, where umbrellas were used in ornamenting the exhibition cabinets.

The exhibition includes 6 sections with 36 manuscripts that were chosen from among 178,500 genuine manuscripts available at the center, where these sections are represented as journey with special characters and names, which include: the journey of science, excellent handwriting, women and science endowment, renowned figures, unique manuscripts, and Gutenberg world.

Director of the corporate communication at the King Faisal Center for Research and Studies Bandar Al-Jahni, in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said that manuscripts enjoy a special importance due to what they own of secrets of the civilizations that change the course of humanity and became a source of inspiration for several scholars, scientists and historians from around the world.

The value of manuscripts at the center today is highlighted through several aspects, especially that the center has 28,000 manuscripts dating back to the second century before Hijrah up to the 14th century. — SPA