The Center for Calligraphy and Manuscripts at the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held, on Wednesday, 29 April 2026, the first session of its regular lecture series on calligraphy and manuscripts. The inaugural lecture, titled “Cookery Manuscripts in Islamic Civilization,” was delivered by Dr. Khaled Azab, Expert in Islamic heritage and urbanism.

The lecture, held both in person and via videoconference, opened with a keynote address by Dr. Abdelilah Benarafa, Deputy ICESCO Director-General. He highlighted the richness and authenticity of culinary heritage in Islamic civilization, stressing the need to bring this great heritage, in which earlier generations excelled, into contemporary culture. He further underscored the importance of producing critical editions that do not merely convey ancient texts to modern readers, but rather examine their sources, study them, and trace the evolution of their content across subsequent texts.

In his lecture, Dr. Khaled Azab then addressed the dialectic between text and content in the culinary heritage of Islamic civilization, and the necessity to integrate the study of the text and its various contexts with archaeology, which contributes to reconstructing the past as it was in order to better understand and interpret it.

He further noted that culinary heritage is the product of a comprehensive process that begins with agriculture, followed by the transportation of agricultural goods, the manufacture of cooking and dining utensils, the act of cooking itself, and finally the methods of presentation and the etiquette of consumption. Accordingly, he stressed the importance of developing an Arab theory of food grounded in the perspective of the science of urbanism within Islamic civilization.

At the conclusion of the lecture, Dr. Azab presented a curated list of both specialized and general cookery manuscripts, along with the miniatures, tools, and illustrated materials associated with them.

The lecture attracted a distinguished audience both in the hall and online. The lecturer engaged in an open discussion with experts and participants, responding to their questions on the topic of the lecture.