Umm Muhammed Umar

Qari Basheer Patel updated Radio Islam on the national Qur’aan competition. He said that they were done with the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, and North West Province regional competitions. He was speaking from Cape Town where a judge’s workshop was being held, to train the judges in judging procedure and criteria. He said that Saturday, June 18^th, was to have seen two preliminary competitions being held, one in the Western Cape, and one in Limpopo Province. The Gauteng regional competition is to be held on June 25^th.

Registration for the Qur’aan competition is still open. It will take place at the CIS Masjid in Laudium, Pretoria. Contenders can also register online at www.alquraan.co.za. Qari Basheer urged the contestants to register timeously, as it allowed them to be prepared on the day of the competition, with logistics such as the number of judges required and so forth.

Regarding the skills imparted to those attending the judge’s workshop, Qari Basheer said, “the judges will be qualified Qaris, Huffaadh etc., (but) there is specific criteria which we use.” He said, “there are many technicalities, so you have to tap into some of the Knowledge, (such as) the science of Tajweed, Qiraat, etc.” Qari Basheer emphasized that that, however, was not the focus of the competition. He added that the focus was on how a contestant was rated: “we train the judges on how to ask questions, what to do if a contestant makes a mistake, what are the appropriate procedures to be followed….” He said that while one might have excellent Tajweed, and be a strong Haafidh, one’s recitation may still not meet up to standard. There are criteria for what made a good recitation, and the judges are trained in this respect.

A date has not as yet been set for the national competition, nor has a venue been decided upon. As soon as these are known, an announcement will be made to the public.