Editorial

Abstract

This editorial presents the guiding vision of the fifth issue of the annual “Iqra” journal for books, libraries, and information, linking its publication to the wider cultural context represented by the Sharjah International Book Fair as an exceptional space for books, reading, and intellectual interaction. The text emphasizes that the annual continues its established practice of providing informational and statistical monitoring of book circulation while opening broader horizons for enlightenment through book culture. At the same time, it stresses the importance of renewal in both the journal’s presentation and the variety of its content in order to satisfy the research-oriented reader and enable the journal to grow and develop within the world of books and knowledge.

The editorial also reflects an awareness of the new challenges facing books and libraries in the age of multimedia and electronically circulating information, and it calls for the recovery of the prestige of knowledge grounded in the book, not through isolation but through dialogue with emerging developments. In this way, the page performs both a programmatic and an introductory function: it defines the cultural and intellectual horizon of the annual and frames the issue’s contents within a vision that affirms the continuity of knowledge while remaining open to contemporary change.