CAIRO, 9 December 2002 — Youssef Mohammad had barely learned to read and write when, at the age of four, he decided to memorize all 114 chapters of the Holy Qur’an.
“It was what I wanted to do,” said the now 14-year-old Libyan. By the age of eight he had memorized the entire scripture of more than 6,000 verses. “There was time for football too,” said Youssef, wearing a gold skullcap with a matching cloak over white robes.
A skill like Youssef’s can earn thousands of dollars in the growing number of international Qur’an recitation contests, where most participants are children.
But for Islamic scholars it is all about guarding a tradition which has been key to protecting the meaning of Qur’an, the word of God revealed to His last prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him), in 7th century Arabia.
Youssef and more than 100 other Muslims from 73 countries recently took part in a recitation contest in Cairo in the holy month of Ramadan, when the revelation of Qur’an began in Makkah 14 centuries ago.
The top cash prize of 30,000 Egyptian pounds ($6,500) went to a Saudi while Youssef came second in his category, winning 20,000 pounds. In another Ramadan contest in Dubai, a Chadian scooped 250,000 dirham ($68,000) for first place, the Khaleej Times newspaper reported.
But for Youssef, who wants to become a religious scholar and studies the Qur’an for seven hours every day, the act of recitation outweighs any material reward.
“It makes you think about the world — about paradise and hell and we must memorize it. It’s the foundation of life,” he said. “It affects your soul.”
Youssef’s recitation skills and those of other competitors, both boys and girls, were judged behind closed doors by a panel of Islamic scholars who randomly picked verses for contestants to recite.
The judges, drawn from across the one-billion strong Muslim world, said they awarded marks for how well competitors met a set of rules believed to preserve the sound of the verses as recited by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The rules govern timbre, syllable duration and pronunciation and are known as “tajwid” in Arabic.
“We listen to the competitors and we give marks according to their recitation — whether it is correct in terms of tajwid,” said Sheikh Muhammad Mashfak, a competition judge from Tunisia.
“This tajwid teaches us how to utter the words of the Qur’an as it was revealed — or roughly at least. We can’t be like the prophet 100 percent,” said Mohamedy bu Shouaib, a green-robed Moroccan judge at the Cairo competition.
Correct recitation of the Qur’an is deemed vital for a true understanding of the Arabic text, which Islamic scholars say is supposed to be heard rather than read silently.
While Qur’an’s meaning has been interpreted in other languages, it must be recited in Arabic — the language in which it was received by Muhammad (pbuh) from God and in which the prophet of Islam taught the religion to his followers.
“The Qur’an came down to the prophet and he taught it to his companions through recitation and the companions taught their followers,” Mashfak said. “The most important tool for guarding Qur’an’s content was recitation. Even pre-Islamic poets focused on recitation more than writing.”
Qur’an recitation was traditionally taught to young children at schools known as kuttab, which have been threatened by the encroachments of secular education systems, said Zaki Badawi, director of London’s Muslim College. “The spread of secular education in the 1950s and 1960s killed the kuttab. By introducing this type of competition people are trying to bring back the whole idea of learning the Qur’an by heart,” he said.
Egypt, whose Al-Azhar mosque and university is one of the most prestigious seats of Islamic learning, first ran its international competition 10 years ago. Dubai this year hosted its sixth international contest.
Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s two most holy places in Makkah and Madinah, has hosted more than 20 such competitions. But a 44-year-old contest in Malaysia remains the most prestigious, Badawi said, adding that Kuala Lumpur had pioneered the idea of a global competition and that other Muslim countries had followed suit in what has become a display of state support.
“The competitions are considered a matter of prestige and of a government’s commitment to Islam,” he said. “It began as a new trend which now everyone is following.” (R)