Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, Emir of Riyadh region and Chairman of the Board of Directors of King Abdul Aziz Darat, has called the ministries of Education, Higher Education and Culture and Information to make use of the invaluable historical references on the Kingdom and its leaders. The call reflects the Emir's keenness to make the said ministries draw benefits from these rare documents particularly at a time when the Kingdom is making arrangements for the celebration of National Day on Sept. 23 or Shawwal 25. The Darat was established during the reign of King Faisal in September 1972 as an independent entity. It is considered as a scientific academy established to commemorate the memory of King Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, and as a center for scientific research to collect, revise and translate all materials written about the Kingdom, the Arabs and Islamic World in all languages, and make it available to the public. The Darat provides researchers with references, documents, maps and drawings to help them in making complete researches in an ideal way. The Darat's library has references related to the history of the Arabian Peninsula. It contains about 12,000 volumes written in different languages, in addition to the library that was presented to King Abdul Aziz by former American president Henry Truman in 1951 which contains 1,551 volumes in different fields of science. These references, which focus on the Kingdom's political, cultural and social history and documentaries, are essential to lend credibility to whatever material written about the Kingdom's National Day, its founder and his sons who succeeded him. King Abdul Aziz Darat is an invaluable treasury of knowledge. It contains thousands of rare documentaries and references that are extremely important for any researcher who wants to write about the Kingdom's history and leaders. This explains the reason behind the Prince's call to educational and cultural institutions in the country to benefit to the most from this treasury of knowledge. __
