Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority concluded its international Quran and Adhan competition on 7 April 2023 with a ceremony held during the final episode of the popular Otr Elkalam show. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Authority, His Excellency Advisor Turki bin Abdel Mohsen Alalshikh, awarded the 20 winners of the valuable prizes.
The competition, which began in 2019 and partnered this year with the Muslim World League, attracted over 50,000 contestants from 165 countries. The final qualifiers included 50 participants who competed in the recitation and Adhan tracks on the Otr Elkalam show broadcast on MBC and the Shahid digital platform.
The competition achieved six certificates from the Guinness Book of Records. It set records for the number of participating countries in both the Quran and Adhan tracks, as well as the largest number of participants in the Quran competition. It also earned three other records for being the largest competition to attract participants in the Adhan competition, the largest prize pool for a Quran recitation competition, and the largest prize pool for a call to prayer (Adhan) competition.
Iranian contestant Younis Shahmradi won first place in the recitation track and received a prize of SAR3 million, followed by Saudi Abdulaziz Al-Faqih who won second place with a prize of SAR2 million, Moroccan contestant Zakaria Al-Zirk who won third place and a prize of SAR1 million, and his compatriot Abdullah Al-Daghri who won fourth place with a prize of SAR700,000.
In the Adhan track, Saudi contestant Mohammed Al-Sharif won first place with a prize of SAR2 million, followed by Indonesian Diaa Al-Din bin Nazar Al-Din who won second place with a prize of SAR1 million, Raheef Al-Hajj who won third place with a prize of SAR500,000, and British Ibrahim Asad who won fourth place with a prize of SAR300,000.
The Otr Elkalam show opened with a recitation of Quranic verses by the winner of the first edition of the competition, Moroccan reciter Younes Gharbi, and a call to prayer from Turkish Mohsen Kara, the first winner in the Adhan category last year.
The Quran and Adhan competition is one of the most important initiatives of the General Entertainment Authority during Ramadan, with its content that is commensurate with the spirituality of the month. The competition aims to highlight the beautiful voices in reciting the Holy Quran and raising the call to prayer. The competition specifically stems from the principle of glorifying the Holy Quran and the call to prayer and highlighting the aesthetics of the voices and maqamat for Quran reciters and muezzins.
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