The
civilization of a nation
is derived from its
history and documents
forming a materialized
evidence for any civilization.
Therefore, each nation
must strive to preserve
its documents, organize
it, retrieve it and
use it as a well-sought
out fact when writing
or rewriting history.
The
document heritage of
the Arab Nation, in
all its forms, has a
unique deep-rooted place
among world civilization.
Each
day, a new finding and
research adds something
new to the ever-growing
data of one of the oldest
civilization of mankind.
With
the rise of the Arab
Golden Age, a lot of
public and private libraries
flourished. Over the
years many of the library
contents were either
destroyed or looted
especially during the
Crusader's War. Even
today, and just like
the crusaders before,
Zionists are carrying
out mass destruction
against the Palestinian
identity including document
stealing and destruction.
Yet,
still many of our documents
have survived to the
present day. Research
shows that the biggest
collections of Arab
documents is available
in Turkey, 155000 volume,
next Egypt with 80000
volume, followed by
Iran with 60000 volume,
Russia 40000 volume,
Iraq and Morocco 35000
volume, Tunis 25000
volume, Britain and
Syria 25000 volume,
USA 15000 volume, India
and Saudi Arabia 15000,
Yugoslavia 14000 volume,
Yemen 10000 volume,
France 8500 volume,
Italy and Vatican 7500
volume. In addition
to other countries with
almost 600 volumes.
The
total number mounts
up to almost a million
Arab manuscript scattered
all over the world.
In
an aim to revive our
document heritage, the
17th of October will
be marked as the Arab
Document Day. Since
the first National Documentation
Exhibition 1997, was
held in October. This
day will highlight the
importance of Arab documents
and strengthen cooperation
& coordination among
Arab Document Centers
& institutions. For
this, Arabcin issues
a monthly magazine aimed
at focussing on & following
up all news concerning
documents and archives
for Arab readers.
To
this end, "Areen" always
try to look for new
forms and contents to
reach its aims and objects.
Thus, this special issue,
containing four languages,
Arabic, English, French
and Spanish, clearly
shows the cultural updating
coverage achieved by
"Areen". And its new
form gives it a flexible
and sophisticated dimension
another step to achieve
the wanted aims.
