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Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Winners of the 39th King Faisal International Prize will start arriving in Riyadh today (Monday) as the King Faisal Foundation and King Faisal International Prize make the final preparations for the award ceremony to be held at the Al-Faisaliah Hotel on Tuesday 4th of April 2017.
The ceremony will be held in the presence and under the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and attended by princes, ministers, top officials, thought leaders, scholars, scientists and representatives of the media.
The King Faisal International Prize honours exceptional achievements in five categories: Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language & Literature, Medicine, and Science.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman will receive the King Faisal International Prize 2017 for Service to Islam for his outstanding services to Islam and Muslims.
The King will give away the Prize in the other categories to four researchers and an academy. The winners are: Professor Ridwan Al-Sayyid from Lebanon (Islamic Studies); the Arabic Language Academy of Jordan (Arabic Language and Literature); Professor Tadamitsu Kishimoto from Japan (Medicine); and Professor Daniel Loss from Switzerland and Professor Laurens Molenkamp from the Netherlands, who shared the Prize in the Science category for their contributions to Physics.
Following the meetings of the KFIP Selection Committees, HRH Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Chairman of KFIP Board, and Dr. Abdulaziz Alsebail; KFIP Secretary-General, had announced in January the winners of the 39th session of the prestigious award, with King Salman winning the Service to Islam prize as the major highlight of the event.
The King Faisal International Prize is awarded by the King Faisal Foundation, founded by the sons and daughters of the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, who passed away in 1975. The prize was launched in 1977 with its first session taking off two years later.
Scientists who were awarded the King Faisal International Prize have gone on to receive other prestigious awards in following years; for example 18 King Faisal Prize laureates went on to receive the Nobel Prize, while 13 won the Gairdner Foundation International Awards, 11 received the American National Medals of Science, and 9 were awarded the Lasker Medical Award; among many other distinguished prizes. This reflects the accurate international standards adopted by the King Faisal International Prize when selecting the scholars and scientists for their services to mankind.
Among the 253 winners of the King Faisal International Prize were late Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zuwail (1989 laureate), Professor Francoise Barre Sinoussi (1993 laurete), South African biologist Sydney Brenner (1992 laureate), German physicist Theodor Hansch (1989 laureate), Sheikh Ali Al-Tantawi (1990 laureate), Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef (1991 laureate), Sheikh Jad Al-Haq Ali Jad Al-Haq, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar (1995 laureate), and Mr. Ahmad Hussein Deedat (1986 laureate), to name a few.
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© Press Release 2017
