Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser today visited the new Ottoman Archives Centre in Istanbul, Turkey to view a number of notable historical documents relating to Turkey’s relations with the Arab world.
Her Highness’ visit sees further progress in the partnership between the Ottoman Archives and Qatar Foundation which since 2011 has seen a number of Ottoman documents relating to Qatar digitised and translated into English and Arabic. The collaboration will see further digitisation of documents as well as joint research between Qatari and Turkish scholars.
During the tour, Her Highness expressed her delight in visiting the new Centre and emphasized the importance of further strengthening the cultural relationship between Qatar and Turkey through the continued translation and digitalization of the historical Arab documents which play an essential role not only in enriching the understanding of the Gulf region’s heritage but also in preserving its Islamic values and culture.
The Ottoman Archives are a collection of historical documents of 42 nations who were once related to the Ottoman Empire. The number of the Ottoman documents that relate to the Arab world is estimated between 80 and 100 million, of which only 50,000 documents have been translated so far. Apart from the documents, there are over 130 newspapers and magazines in different languages including Arabic, Hebrew, Serbian, German and Russian.
The digitalization relationship with the Ottoman Archives comes a day after Qatar Foundation’s launch of the Qatar National Library portal which includes 500,000 India Office Records documents relating to the British Empire’s historical relationship with Qatar, which will be digitized. [Update to reflect wording from QF announcement].
During the visit Her Highness was hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Mr Numan Kurtulmus and the Director of the Ottoman Archives Mr Ugur Unal.