Erdogan to receive “Service to Islam Prize” this week

Recep Tayyip Erdogan – World Bulletin

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Saudi Arabia this week to receive the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam, popularly known as the “Arab Nobel Prize.”

Erdogan who will make the visit on March 8 and 9, told the International Islamic News Agency, that the prize was awarded not only to him but also to the Turkish nation and Turkey.

“The prize is really meaningful for its title,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “As a Muslim, it is out of question for me to think about anything other than the service mentioned in that title (service to Islam),” he said.

The prize, given every year by Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Foundation, is presented to scientists and people who create positive differences in the world and make contributions to Islam.

According to Saudi daily Arab News, two internationally acclaimed mathematicians, Professor Enrico Bombieri from the US and Professor Terence Chi-Shen Tao from Australia, were declared co-winners of the prize in science (mathematics).

Professor Reinhold Ganz from Germany and two professors from Canada’s Montreal University, Jean-Pierre Pelletier and Johanne Martel Pelletier, were declared co-winners of the prize in medicine.

“The award for Islamic studies was withheld, as none of the nominees met the criteria laid down by the selection committee this year,” said Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, governor of the Makkah region and chief of the King Khaled Foundation (KKF).

In the citation read out in January at the announcement of the winners, KFIP Secretary-General Abdullah Al Othaimeen said that “Erdogan has pioneered a major campaign that placed Turkey among the world’s leading countries, economically and industrially.”

“His unyielding position on various Islamic and global issues, particularly the rights of the Palestinian people, has gained him the respect and admiration of the entire Islamic world and the international community at large,” he said.

Hadj Saleh was named the co-winner of the prize in Arabic language and literature in recognition of his insightful analysis of Al Khalil’s linguistic theory and its relation to contemporary grammatical thought. Co-winner Baalbaki shared the prize in recognition of his tireless efforts and research on Arabic grammatical thought.

Ganz, chairman emeritus, Orthopedics Department at the University of Bern, the co-winner of the award for medicine, has dedicated his career to the study and treatment of hip joint diseases. The other co-winners in this category, Jean-Pierre Pelletier and Johanne Martel Pelletier of Montreal University (Canada), have contributed substantially to translational research in the field of osteoarthritis.

In the Mathematics category, Enrico Bombieri of the US, IBM von Neumann professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and Australian Terence Chi-Shen Tao, James and Carol Collins Chair of Mathematics at the University of California, shared the prize for their outstanding contributions to various branches of mathematics. Bombieri’s work addresses fundamental and difficult problems of mathematics, while Tao’s is known for his technical brilliance in the use of the necessary mathematical machinery.