Our Arabic language is a queen crowned over all languages. If Arabs were not weak and divided — and some even hostile to the language - Arabic speakers would be found everywhere and in all arenas, proud of its pronunciation and the beauty of its meanings. Like any crowned queen, Arabic has keepers who guarantee her noble, prestigious life and guards to keep her out of harm’s way.

Throughout history, these keepers have worked hard to preserve it and teach people about its origins. This beautiful language has knights of various ranks who defend it and work hard to spread it, making it easily accessible.

However, these knights have faced significant challenges as the Arab nation regressed in front of other nations for various reasons. This regression enabled enemies to besiege the greatest outstanding trait of this nation — its language, the key to the religion chosen by the Lord of creation.

The more our opponents control our nation, the more darts are directed at our language. Sometimes they use trickery or power, and sometimes they invest in certain members of the Arab nation or minorities living among us, making them the ‘stabbers’ of our language and promoters of foreign cultures at the expense of Arabic. Despite these efforts to undermine the Arabic language, it has resisted fiercely, carried in a preserved book no human can hide or misrepresent.

We recently lost one of the knights of our Arabic language, Mohammad Abdulrahman Al-Sharekh. Sharekh, who founded the Sakher company for computer programming in 1982, was among the major defenders of Arabic in front of the army of haters. He realized the world was heading towards computer culture and that the best service for Arabic was for computers to speak it.

He introduced Arabic to the computer for the first time in history and received three patents in this field: Light recognition of alphabets, automatic translation from Arabic to English and pronunciation in Arabic. Sharekh, a knight of special rank, deserved the King Faisal International Award for the service of Islam, among eight other major awards. His loss is not like losing a famous person for a simple reason: His impact on the nation will remain as long as the heavens and earth exist. Congratulations to him for this great achievement, as whoever serves the language of the Holy Quran will attain glory.

[email protected]