In May 2017, in Dubai, the Al-Manarah International Library in Nazareth was awarded the prestigious Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Excellence in the Culture of Thought and the Knowledge Society.

The Al-Manarah International Library is the first Arab language library to be adapted for the blind and the disabled in reading in the Arab world. It specializes in issuing audio, digital, and Braille books, through its website www.arabcast.org, and applying free smartphones to Android and Apple. Under the name of the Al-Manara Library. The library, which has a global reach, was established and developed with funding from Taawon in 2014 and is the first of its kind in the Arab world.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Award is the highest appreciation of the efforts of individuals in the field of Arabic and in Arabic-language institutions. It is one of the initiatives launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to promote, disseminate, and use Arabic in public life, to facilitate learning and education, and to strengthen the status of the Arabic language and encourage a workers’ renaissance.

The Award has high standards, for which the winner is granted an additional degree of commitment and availability in his initiative, namely: originality and scientific honesty, to be original work not imitated or copied taking into account the assets of the scientific secretariat. Language, under which the work must be in the correct Arabic language, and finally, that the initiative has achieved the objectives and desired results.