00:04This Islamic Civilization Center is one of the most remarkable things I've seen anywhere in the world.
00:15In a single year, the center of Islamic Civilization in Uzbekistan has been visited by presidents,
00:21the Director General of UNESCO, special envoys and former prime ministers,
00:25and on a busy day, over 5,000 members of the public.
00:28It's become one of the busiest diplomatic addresses in Central Asia.
00:34At a time of growing division, the center aims to use history as a bridge between cultures,
00:41promoting peace, tolerance and greater understanding of the ideas and traditions
00:45that connect Uzbekistan, Europe and the wider world.
00:52It's a project on an extraordinary scale, and to those who study Islamic heritage for a living,
00:57an extraordinary idea.
01:01We are talking about a grand project, a very unique one,
01:07that brings together all these threads of the Islamic Civilization throughout the ages.
01:14So, yes, it's a grand project, it's a unique one, it's a very important one.
01:20It carries within itself many aspects, starting from beauty, construction, message, ideas,
01:29and therefore it is such an important project.
01:33I would call it probably one of those, you know, investments and projects for the whole Uzbekistan.
01:43It is not just the building.
01:44Buildings, in some ways, are easier to construct.
01:48It is the idea behind the building, which I think is most astonishing and very, very important.
01:55A great contribution to this country, to the region, and indeed to world civilization.
02:02The idea took shape in 2017, when Uzbekistan's president stood at the United Nations
02:07and argued that the answer to ignorance and Islamophobia was not slogans, but enlightenment.
02:12Nine years on, the doors are open, and within months, the recognition followed.
02:17Named among the world's most beautiful museums by the pre-Façai, among the most anticipated
02:22by the Smithsonian, and, by Guinness World Records, the largest museum of Islamic civilization on Earth,
02:29the head of the Islamic world's leading cultural body came to see it for himself.
02:35What I saw is beyond the imagination, beyond what I thought the center would be.
02:41The center came as an idea by His Excellency President, Shaukat Mirziyaf.
02:49It was one of his dreams, and I think when dreams become real, that is something that you should be
02:59proud of.
03:03At its heart, a seventh-century Quran on deerskin, but never only a museum.
03:09Inside are offices for a range of academic institutions, including UNESCO and the University of Oxford.
03:15But why here? Because this land sat at the crossroads of the old world.
03:22The collections here show how Uzbekistan's position at the crossroads between East and West
03:28helped ideas, scholarship, and scientific knowledge travel across the world.
03:32By bringing this heritage together, the center highlights Uzbekistan's contribution to medicine,
03:38mathematics, and astronomy, and the influence that knowledge had across the Islamic world and Europe.
03:47Europe learnt its medicine from a physician born Bukhara.
03:50The word algorithm is a European mispronunciation of a mathematician's name.
03:55Ibn Sina in Europe.
03:57They gave him another name.
03:59When you are talking of Avicenna, the contribution or the impact in the West, in Europe, is far greater
04:08than people might realize over here.
04:10Over there, people would know the great contribution of Avicenna,
04:13but not everybody would know where he came from, or what his interests were, or where they were taught.
04:31What the museum or the center is trying to bring is not only for someone who visits this place
04:39to be excited and to be proud about their past, but rather to find themselves in that place.
04:58The center has made itself a meeting point.
05:01This year it held the first international forum, drawing more than 400 scholars and religious leaders
05:07from over 50 countries, under a single theme, the path to peace, tolerance and enlightenment.
05:19There is also quite a diplomacy at work.
05:22This year, 900 artifacts looted from the ancient Termes, sculpted heads from the Christian era,
05:27and fragments of wall painting, some more than 1,500 years old, were recovered in London and brought home.
05:33They were handed over at a ceremony marking 690 years since the birth of Amir Temer.
05:43The message is a lot to do with the historical memory,
05:48and might serve as a message for more and more such artifacts to head back to their home country.
05:56I love the fact that the centers work with Oxford and Cambridge and the close connection that the UK has,
06:03because some of the artifacts that are here were in the UK and are now where they should be, which
06:07is here.
06:08And I hope that's a sign not of the past, but of the future between our two countries.
06:17So what is it for?
06:1860% of Uzbekistan is under 35.
06:21They are who the argument is aimed at.
06:27It is so important, particularly in the world today,
06:31where there is a tendency to deny the past in some quarters, in other parts of the world,
06:38where people think as if, you know, everything was contributed only by themselves, not by others.
06:43To be reminded that, you know, human civilization is something to which all people have contributed,
06:49and to which all people can make a contribution in the future.
06:54None of it happens quickly, and Professor Nizami is the first to say so.
07:21Forget where you came from, he says, and you lose more than a history.
07:28Just as you can have orphans, civilizations can also be orphans,
07:33if they forget who their parents were.
07:41This place remembers.
07:42The scholars are arriving, the delegations are coming, the doors are open.
07:46In a world that has forgotten how to talk to itself,
07:49Uzbekistan has built somewhere to start.
07:55Gail Nan смотреть...
07:58Gail Nan.
07:59Gail Nan.
07:59Grazie a tutti.
Commenti