Dubai, August 20: A visually-impaired contestant finds peace through his Quran memorisation, dedicating his miracle to the heartbreaking tragedy of losing his mother a year ago.
Seventeen-year-old Rakan Ebrahim Ahmad gradually lost his sight due to heath complications he underwent at a young age.
He has a chance of regaining it but his circumstances in Iraq make it difficult to maintain even the family’s daily basic needs, he said.
Rakan is one of the participants at this year’s 14th session of the Dubai International Holy Quran Award (DIHQA), which began on Wednesday.
This is also Rakan’s first time outside of his small village in Mosul, Iraq, and the first time he has taken part in an international competition.
Inspired
“The situation in Iraq is deteriorating. It has made our life almost impossible. I come from a poor village in Mosul which has been hit by a massive drought. We have lost a lot of our crops and had to sell our cattle.”
Our schools are too basic for them to accommodate a visually-impaired person. I had to stop my eye treatment due to lack of money, he added.
The tragedy continued when he lost his mother, after his sister accidentally shot her. The irony is that his father had bought the gun to protect the family since the 2003 US invasion on Iraq.
“Every household in Iraq has weapons to protect the family from insurgents or any threatening encounters. My younger sister found the gun and she was playing around with it and accidentally shot my mother,” he said.
Rakan started memorising the Quran at the age of 15 after being inspired by his friends in the community and at the local mosque.
According to his guardian, Rakan has a remarkable talent to memorise.
“If you pick a verse from the Quran he can tell you the page number, verse number and the name of the chapter.”
A month before his mother died, Rakan memorised the entire Quran.
“I will never forget the day my mother knew I had completed my memorisation. I am the only one among my siblings to have memorised the Quran and today I dedicate my presence here at the competition to my mother,” he said. Rakan hopes he can get financial assistance to continue his eye treatment as he aims to become an Islamic scholar in the future.
“Reciting the Quran made me understand my being in the universe and the purpose of creation. I can see and feel the world around me through the Quran,” he said.
The DIHQA kicked off on Wednesday night with participants from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Lebanon, Qatar, Bosnia, and Chad participating on the first day of the competition.
Sri Lankan participant, Safarulla Khan Mohammad Safan, 14, memorised the Quran in three years.Another participant Cyusa Abdullahi, aged nine, from Rwanda memorised the full Quran (composed of 30 parts) in a short span of time, memorising almost one chapter a day.
Bosnian participant, Abdullah Kapo, says his memorisation of the Quran engulfs him with serenity. He wants to be a propagator of the Quran in his home country which has witnessed the genocide of Muslims by ethnic Croatians in the last decade.
Filipino participant, Talha Ahmad Alimoden, memorised the Quran in a year, it was his mother’s dream. Before she had even married she dreamed a child of hers would memorise the Quran.
-Courtesy: Gulf News