Motoko Katakura (片倉もとこ (素子)) (née Niiya, 17 October 1937 - 23 February 2013)[2] was a Japanese anthropologist who specialized in the Islamic world.
Abdur-Rahim Al Aḥmadī was the best supporter for Katakura's field work in Saudi Arabia since the early stage of her research in late 1960s.
He witnessed that Katakura went into the nomad society of Wadi Fatima (western Saudi Arabia) and lived among those people for a period, and she visited them several times over the years.
[notes 2] She appreciated the contribution and support Abdur-Rahim Al Ahmadi had offered her, and asked him writing the preface to the Arabic version of that title.
[4] In the United States of America, they made acquaintance with Hisashi Owada who was also a diplomat, and she recalled many times that she and her husband met his daughter Masako, the future Crown Princess of Japan during those years.
On the first day at the National Museum of Ethnology as a professor, it was not quite comfortable for her to find her name inscribed in kanji only on the nameplate to her office, as she confessed in her essay.
[20] It was a part of their aim to honor the desert culture which was yet to be popular in Japan, and they presented the first "Yutorogi Prize" to Mr and Mrs. Tadashi Nagahama of Nihon Baiobirejji Kyokai (日本バイオビレッジ協会) for their continued effort and dedication to desertification control activities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, for over twenty years.