Bringing Arab literature to the world

Google to publish from the Arabic heritage books online Cairo - Ali Ragab Google has approached Egypt's al-Azhar over rights to publish books from the Arabic heritage books online. The web giant noted that Arabic pages available online represent a very small percentage of the overall content. Out of four billion people who use the web every day, only 200 million are Arab. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar and president of al-Azhar University Ahmed el-Tayeb has meanwhile criticised Arab countries for failing to unite over their common language. The Islamic leader pointed at the example of the Europe, which is united under a single entity despite hosting a diversity of languages. Al-Tayeb also called for the formation of a panel of experts from language associations and Arabic departments across the Arab world to study the causes of the Arabic language's "deterioration" and possible remedies. Dr Obeid al-Muhairi, the director of the Azhar Centre for Teaching the Arabic Language for Non-Arabic Speakers, said the Grand Imam's initiative for an Arabic revival "can only be brought about through al-Azhar's backing." He said experts had noted that students find the language difficult to study and therefore avoid enrolling in Arabic courses.