UAE, Tunisia Sign MoU to Revamp 'Home of Ibn Khaldun'

Initiative to restore the house of the great Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Khaldun in Tunis. WAM
Initiative to restore the house of the great Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Khaldun in Tunis. WAM
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UAE, Tunisia Sign MoU to Revamp 'Home of Ibn Khaldun'

Initiative to restore the house of the great Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Khaldun in Tunis. WAM
Initiative to restore the house of the great Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Khaldun in Tunis. WAM

UAE’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Tunisia have concluded an MoU to revamp the ‘Home of Ibn Khaldun’ in the City of Culture, Shazly Kelibi, in Tunis.
Aimed at turning the house into a museum for the renowned scholar Abdurahman ibn Khaldoun, the MoU was signed by Abdurrahman Mohamed Al Owais, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center and Dr. Hayat Qatat Al-Qarmazi, the Minister of Cultural Affairs of Tunisia, in the presence of Dr Yousef Al Obaidli, Director-General of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center in Abu Dhabi, and Dr. Iman Ahmed Al-Salami, UAE Ambassador to Tunisia, along with a number of officials from both countries.

“The initiative to restore the house of the great Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Khaldun in Tunis, which comes under the noble patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, constitutes one of the initiatives of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center for preserving human heritage at all local, Arab, and international levels," said Al Owais.

“This effort reflects the UAE's commitment to preserving world heritage, in its both tangible and intangible forms, an approach that was initiated by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and maintained by the UAE wise leadership in an example to follow in terms of tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and cultural harmony,” he added.

For her part, Al-Qarmazi hailed the longstanding cultural cooperation between the two countries in the field of culture and heritage.

“This signing is a step in the right direction for advancing the partnership between the two nations in a way that showcases the rich cultural heritage of the Arab and Islamic worlds," she added.



UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.
UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.
"It's the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context," Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant "provisional enhanced protection" -- the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention -- to the site.
UNESCO had then said it was "already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture" in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.