Quranic Week Underway in Karbala

According to the website of the holy shrine, the Quranic week is annually held by Iraqi Shia Awqaf Department in cooperation with the National Center of Quran Sciences.

The opening ceremony of the week was attended by Sheikh ‘Abdul Mahdi Al-Karbalayi, custodian of the holy shrine, Seyyed Afdhal Al-Shami, deputy of the holy shrine’s Astan (custodianship), Seyyed Saleh Al-Heidari, head of the Shia Awqaf Department, ‘Adel Al-Kanani, director of the national center and a number of scholars, intellectuals, seminarians and Quran activists.

Sheikh Rafi’ Al-‘Ameri, top Quran reciter of the country, said that competitions on memorization, recitation and interpretation of the Holy Quran are among the programs of the week.

Every province of Iraq will have a representative at the interpretation category of the competition and those competing in memorization category should be a memorizer of the entire Quran.

Al-‘Ameri added that the competitions will conclude on December 23 and winners will be awarded in a ceremony on December 24. Seyyed Jamal Shahrestani, head of the public relations office of Husseini holy shrine, said that a Quranic research competition has also been planned as a sideline program and the best Quranic research will be selected from among 25 Quranic papers submitted to the department.