His Royal Highness Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, the Adviser to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Governor of Makkah Province, at the Makkah Emirate headquarters in the Holy Capital of Makkah Al-Mukarramah, launched the first electronic encyclopedia for Arabic Poetry, which was carried out and supervised by Umm Al-Qura University. This event took place in the presence of His Excellency the UQU President, Prof. Abdullah bin Omar Bafail, the Vice President for Postgraduate Studies and Scientific Research, Prof. Abdul-Wahab Al-Resini, the Vice President for Female Student Affairs, Dr. Sarah bint Omar Al-Khuli, the Dean of Scientific Research, Dr. Muhammad Al-Sufi, the Vice Dean of Scientific Research for Information Affairs, Dr. Abdullah Baz, the Vice Dean of Scientific Research for Development, Quality, and Academic Accreditation, Dr. Hanadi Bihairi, the Vice Dean of Scientific Research for Research Volunteering and Voluntary Research, Dr. Sumayyah Sharaf, the Director of the Arabic Language and Literature Research Center, Dr. Abdullah Al-Shinqiti, and the main researcher in the Project, Dr. Mariam Al-Qahtani.

His Royal Highness listened to an overview about the encyclopedia that was carried out by 67 researchers at the Arabic Language Research Center in the Deanship of Scientific Research, and was gathered from authentic sources of poetry. This encyclopedia contains more than 268 thousand lines of poetry for 3400 poets from the pre-Islamic period to the modern time, according to the most authentic narrations and the most perfect and accurate scientific documentation.

The encyclopedia aims at developing a reference for the eloquent Arabic language and facilitating scientific research, using an accurate search engine designed by the Engineering Research Center at the university. The encyclopedia helps researchers to conduct phonetic, lexical, linguistic and artistic studies in Arabic poetry. There will be an annexed project to develop the encyclopedia to include the heritage of poetry till our modern age with more than one million lines of poetry.

The encyclopedia will accomplish several achievements: safeguarding Arabic poetry in its brilliant image, documenting it in a scientifically authentic manner based on the most authentic narrations verified by the scholars and critics of the nation, facilitating access to the heritage of poetry and its verification, and making use of this encyclopedia in compiling lexicons, creating encyclopedias, revealing the potentials of the language, and following up its development throughout history.

In the same context, His Royal Highness Prince Badr bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Emir of Makkah Province, received the President of the University, who handed him the report on the poetry encyclopedia.

His Royal Highness listened to an overview about the encyclopedia, for which the most modern technological search is possible using the electronic search engines connected to the university website to serve the encyclopedia and those desiring to make use of it in their scientific research.

His Excellency the President of the University praised the care and support of His Royal Highness Prince Kalid Al-Faisal and his Deputy to the scientific, research and cultural achievements of Umm Al-Qura University.