Inspired by the words of the Almighty: {The last of it is musk. So for this let the competitors compete.} (83-26), the contestants participating to the first Quranic competition for the recitation held by the Holy Quran Institute at the Al-Abbas's (p) holy shrine, carry on competing at the final stages of the competition that lasted two days in three sessions, the last of them was on Saturday evening, the 24th of Rabi At-Thani 1436 AH corresponding to the 14th February 2015, under the supervision of international readers and judges in the field of recitation and its rules from the tune, melody, start and stop times and the voice.
This competitive rounds resulted five winners from which the first three winners will chosen and will be honoured at the closing ceremony that will be held on Sunday morning. The winners will be participate in the local and international competition, while the rest of the participants with high levels will be prepared to benefit from their energies and expertise to teach Quranic rules to the new students, each of them according to the province where they live. Noting that this is part of the goal of the national project to prepare readers in Iraq.
The Director of the Institute of the Holy Quran Sheikh Jawad Al-Nasrawi spoke about this session to Al-Kafeel Global Network, saying: "Since the inception of the Holy Quran Institute, it has among its objectives to stimulate the Quranic activity and supplying it with readers, that is why it has adopted many projects such as summer courses, the project of teaching the correct reading to the visitors during Zyarat periods, as well as the national project to establish Quranic evenings at the holy shrines and the project of publishing the holy Quran along with the spoken Quran, in addition to the Quranic project for the students of the Iraqi institutes and universities in collaboration with the House of Quran at the Imam Al-Hussayn's (p) holy shrine. Then came the national project to prepare Quran readers, which was launched 18 months ago. A project that is praised and supported by many, especially the local and international Quran institutions such as the Syndicate of the Egyptian Readers. Sessions were held for teaching the regulations of recitations, from which readers have graduated, and who will be themselves responsible to teach in the future courses in order to ensure its breadth development and prepare new Quran readers."
Adding: "The project includes several phases, the first phase is to establish specialized sessions for the readers of all the provinces in the holy city of Karbala. So, we have held for nine provinces 17 sessions in Karbala, in which more than 200 readers have participated, each session included 15 students for (7-10) days during which they have received intensive lessons in terms of recitation, voice and tune.
The second phase was the national competition for the graduates of these sessions, held during these days, and at the closing ceremony we will announce the names of the first winners, who will be themselves the nucleus to complete this project in the provinces InshaAllah."
As for the mechanism of Arbitration, Sheikh Al-Nasrawi explained: "We are using international Arbitration mechanisms and methods, and all the judges are international, while the contestants are all local from nine provinces that have participated in this project, and God willing, next year, the rest of the provinces of Iraq will be taken into account respectively in the project."
It is to note that the The contestants, who rushed to the podium to perform their recitation, have undergone many tests under the supervision of a jury composed of international judges and readers, who are: Hassanein Al-Helu and Ali Al-Bayati for judging the tune, Rafi' Al-'Amiri and Mustafa Al-Ghalibi for judging the melody, Mahdi Qalandar and Ahmad Al-Najafi for judging the start and stop times, and Seraj Munir and Ahmad Al-Badri for judging the voice. And a draw has been conducted for each reader to select the Chapter and the number of verses he will be reading, and his grades were calculated based on his performance and his recitation.