King Faisal prize winners

Moroccan Professor Said Abdesslam Allouche has won the 1999 King Faisal prize in Arabic literature for his works made in comparative literary studies.

The Moroccan academic will share his prize with Egyptian professor Makarim Ahmed Al-Ghamri, an official Saudi source announced on Tuesday in Riyadh.

Three Western scientists, a Japanese, a Syrian islamic scholar, and an educational philanthropist from the United Arab Emirates have been awarded Saudi Arabia's 1999 King Faisal International Prizes.

The prizes, which were first awarded in 1979, are considered among the most prestigious in the Arab world. Each of the five prizes is worth $200,000.

Professor Patrick Holt, from Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council, and Stephen T. Holgate, professor of Imunopharmacology at England's University of Southampton, were granted the medicine prize.

Ryoji Noyori, professor of chemistry at Japan's Nagoya University, and Dieter Seebach, a German scientist at Zurich's Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland, will share the science prize.

Juma al-Majid Abdallah, an educational philanthropist from the United Arab Emirates, was given the prize honoring his services to Islam while Sheikh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, a Syrian Islamic scholar, was awarded the prize for Islamic studies.

The Riyadh-based King Faisal Foundation, dedicated to philanthropic activities, is named after Saudi Arabia's late King Faisal.