Afghan Qari Calls for Unified Regulations for Judgments in Int’l Quran Contests

Kuala Lumpur (IQNA) – A Quran reciter from Afghanistan called for introducing a unified set of rules for judgments in international Quran competitions.

Seyed Ruhollah Hashemi, who represented Afghanistan in Malaysia’s 62^nd international Holy Quran competition, told IQNA in an interview that there are many international Quran contest organized by different countries.

He said the problem is that each of them has its own set of regulations on how to assess the performance of the contenders.

Introduction of unified set of regulations would ensure more fairness in Quran competitions and enrich the Quranic events, he added.

Referring to the contest in Malaysia, he said most members of the panel of judges were among veteran qaris of the Southeast Asian country who have their own method of scoring the contenders’ performance.  

Hashemi was not among the top five contestants in this edition of the competition despite his good recitation. Iran’s representative Masoud Nouri had also been among the favorites to win a title but did not.

Asked about his Quranic activities, Hashemi said he started learning Quran recitation at the age of 7 by listening to audio cassettes of recitations by Egyptian legendary qari Sheikh Abdul Basit Abdul Samad.

He said that as well as reciting the Quran for almost 20 years now, he has also memorized five Juzes (parts) of the Holy Book.

Hashemi noted that he had been scheduled to represent Afghanistan in Malaysia’s Quranic event three years ago but the competition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The Afghan qari also said that in his previous experience in an international Quranic event, he had come first in the international Quran competition organized by Iran’s Al-Kawtahr TV network in 2014.

The final round of the 62nd edition of Malaysia’s international Holy Quran competition, officially known as Malaysia International Al-Quran Recital and Memorization Assembly (MTHQA), was held at the KLCC from October 19 to 24.

Thirsty-six male and female qaris from 27 countries competed in the final round.

The winners of the first to fifth ranks were the representatives of Bahrain, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iraq and Singapore, respectively.  

The contest was organized after a two-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Only the recitation category was contested this time, with the memorization category expected to return next year.

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