85 countries approved for Quran competition

Tuesday, Sep 01, 2009

Gulf News

Dubai: The committee of the Dubai Holy Quran Award has approved the participation of 85 countries for this year's competition, while recently ruling out five contestants for their poor performance.

The award, in its 13th session, is held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The organising committee of the Dubai International Holy Quran Award (DIHQA) has sought assistance of the Emirates Psychological Association to help participants deal with stage fright.

Shaikh Ahmad Saqr Al Suwaidi, head of the competing unit of the DIHQA, said they will receive a comprehensive report on the success of this new scheme.

According to him, the disqualified participants were from Canada, Comoros Islands, Ukraine, Portugal, and Brunei.

Many of the aspiring young contestants come from poor backgrounds, but from an environment that gives importance to culture and religion in their daily lives.

For them, learning and memorising the Quran earns them a high status in their community.

In many of the African nations, students use a small wooden tablet called a lawhah to memorise the Quran. The lawhah can be held up like a book, or it can be propped up against something, said Adam Sankat from the Republic of Mali.

Writing the texts is believed to help memorise the Quran and improve a person's calligraphy. Afterwards students repeat what they have memorised.

The 22-year-old contestant started memorising the Quran at the age of 12 by travelling from his remote village to the city of Toba in Mali, which according to Sankat attracts the most prominent students of the Quran.

For over six years, Sankat lived away from his family and stayed at a poorly facilitated boarding school devoted to teaching the Quran. "I only see my family once a year during Ramadan," he said in a humble tone.

Born among six siblings, Sankat along with two of his brothers are devoted to memorising the Quran, which was their grandfather's dying wish and their late father's goal in life.

It took Sankat five years to memorise the Quran and an additional year to learn to write it. Since he lost his father at a young age, Sankat has worked hard to provide his basic needs and to support his family.

"The prizes from the competition helped to cover most of my expenses," he said, adding his next step is to arrange to study at an Islamic university in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the youngest participant for this year says he is quite pleased by his performance, but it was incredibly terrifying to sit in front of prominent Islamic scholars.

Eleven-year-old Yaqoub Cherchir from Kazakhstan memorised the 30 chapters of the Quran in four years. He started at the age of six.

By Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporter