Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) annually organizes the competition.
According to the website of Diyanet, 120 Quran activists from 62 countries compete in the categories of memorization and recitation of the Holy Quran.
The city’s Fatih Mosque is hosting the Quranic event, which will run until Tuesday, May 23.
Winners will be announced and awarded at the closing ceremony on Wednesday.
Iran has two representatives in the contest. Seyed Mostafa Hosseini competes for the Islamic Republic in recitation and Mostafa Esfehanian is the country’s representative in memorization of the entire Quran.
They arrived in Istanbul on Thursday.
Last year, Iran’s Mehdi Gholamnejad came fourth in the recitation category.