Historian Mike Bruton spoke at KAUST about scientific disruptors from the House of Wisdom during the Islamic Golden Age. These scholars made contributions like introducing the concept of zero and debunking the Greek theory of sight. Ibn al-Haytham revolutionized knowledge of optics, demonstrating that light bounces off objects and enters our eyes. Why it matters: The lecture highlights the significant scientific advancements made during the Islamic Golden Age and their lasting impact on modern civilization.
Salim T. S. Al-Hassani from the University of Manchester presented at KAUST's 2019 Winter Enrichment Program about the contributions of Muslim civilization to science and engineering. The lecture highlighted inventions like early clocks from Muslim heritage, including Al-Jazari's elephant clock. Al-Hassani aims to address the neglect of non-European cultures' impact on humanity. Why it matters: The talk emphasizes the historical significance of Islamic contributions to science and technology, relevant for promoting STEM education and cultural awareness in the region.
This paper introduces a large-scale historical corpus of written Arabic spanning 1400 years. The corpus was cleaned and processed using Arabic NLP tools, including identification of reused text. The study uses a novel automatic periodization algorithm to study the history of the Arabic language, confirming the division into Modern Standard and Classical Arabic. Why it matters: This resource enables further computational research into the evolution of Arabic and the development of NLP tools for historical texts.
Alan Lightman, a science writer and physicist, reflected on great science and scientists of the 20th century. The talk was part of the Enrichment in the Spring program. The event was held at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Why it matters: The taxonomy of great science helps provide useful insights and perspectives on the achievements and progress made in various scientific fields.
The QU-NLP team presented their approach to the QIAS 2025 shared task on Islamic Inheritance Reasoning, fine-tuning the Fanar-1-9B model using LoRA and integrating it into a RAG pipeline. Their system achieved an accuracy of 0.858 on the final test, outperforming models like GPT 4.5, LLaMA, and Mistral in zero-shot settings. The system particularly excelled in advanced reasoning, achieving 97.6% accuracy. Why it matters: This demonstrates the effectiveness of domain-specific fine-tuning and retrieval augmentation for Arabic LLMs in complex reasoning tasks, even surpassing frontier models.
KAUST hosted representatives from Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) member countries to showcase its aquaculture expertise. The IsDB funded the visit, with co-investment from Innovative Contractors for Advanced Dimensions (ICAD), to introduce KAUST's aquaculture technology to representatives from Morocco, Mali, Burkina Faso and Egypt. The visit aimed to accelerate aquaculture capabilities in North and West Africa, with ICAD pledging up to $20 million in grants for future projects using KAUST technology. Why it matters: This collaboration demonstrates KAUST's role as a regional hub for advanced aquaculture technology and promotes sustainable food production in IsDB member countries.
KAUST Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini received the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Science and Technology (S&T) Achievement Award at the First OIC Summit on Science and Technology. The award recognizes Alouini's contributions to science and technology within the OIC member states. Why it matters: Recognition at the OIC level highlights KAUST's impact and Professor Alouini's leadership in advancing science and technology across the Islamic world.
This paper proposes a smart dome model for mosques that uses AI to control dome movements based on weather conditions and overcrowding. The model utilizes Congested Scene Recognition Network (CSRNet) and fuzzy logic techniques in Python to determine when to open and close the domes to maintain fresh air and sunlight. The goal is to automatically manage dome operation based on real-time data, specifying the duration for which the domes should remain open each hour.