DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
UNESCO on Tuesday added
Arabic calligraphy, a key tradition in the Arab and Islamic worlds, to its
Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
اضافة اعلان
A total of 16 Muslim-majority countries, led
by
Saudi Arabia, presented the nomination to the UN Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, which announced the listing on Twitter.
"Arabic calligraphy is the artistic
practice of handwriting Arabic script in a fluid manner to convey harmony,
grace and beauty," UNESCO said on its website.
"The fluidity of Arabic script offers
infinite possibilities, even within a single word, as letters can be stretched
and transformed in numerous ways to create different motifs."
Saudi Culture Minister
Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al-Saud welcomed the decision and said it would
"contribute to developing this cultural heritage", in a statement
carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Abdelmajid Mahboub from the Saudi Heritage
Preservation Society, which was involved in the proposal, said calligraphy
"has always served as a symbol of the Arab-Muslim world".
But he lamented that "many people no
longer write by hand due to technological advances", adding that the
number of specialized Arab calligraphic artists had dropped sharply.
The UNESCO listing "will certainly have
a positive impact" on preserving the tradition, he added.
According to the UNESCO website, intangible
cultural heritage "is an important factor in maintaining cultural
diversity in the face of growing globalization".
Its importance "is not the cultural
manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is
transmitted through it from one generation to the next".
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