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Prisoners take part in Quran contest

He told Khaleej Times yesterday that two inmates of Dubai Police Prisons, a Somali and a Pakistani, are taking part this year for the first time ever. They are both competing in the 10 chapter category of the award. They will appear before the judging panel on the last day of the local competition tomorrow.

Last year, the DIHQA had launched the Quran memorisation project for prison inmates as a new branch of the award following instructions from General Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince, UAE Minister of Defence and the founder of the award.

"Under this project, the prisoners who memorise the Holy Quran or parts, will spend less time in prison. Those who memorise the entire Holy Quran will have 15 years of their jail term waived. Ten years will be waived if they memorise 20 chapters, five years for memorising 10 chapters and one year for five chapters," Dr Al Shaikh said, adding that the inmates enrolled in the memorisation centres at prison are tested every three months.

However, he clarified that the programme is open to all prisoners except those convicted in murder cases or in serious criminal cases in which they have life imprisonment terms, which deprives them of the benefits of participating in the memorisation programme in prison.

"This is one of the main reasons why we allowed them to take part in the local competition which makes it more feasible particularly for those who are involved in cases that leave them with lots of civil rights or financial commitments to fulfill," Dr Al Shaikh said, stressing that other prisoners can apply for the local competition as well.

"Winning in the competition does not entitle the prisoners to any benefits as far as reduction of their jail terms is concerned," he stressed.

This year's award is also marked by the introduction of a cash prize for the best memorisation centre for women and best centre for men memorisers. Each will get a prize of Dh30,000.

"The idea of rewarding the best centre was introduced since the local competition was instituted four years ago, but it took the form of an appreciation certificate for the centre whose students win the first prizes," Dr Al Shaikh said.

This year, in addition to the cash, the best centres will receive gold coins to commemorate the occasion, he said.

"We adopted a scientific method in evaluating the centres this year. In the first visit we inspected the premises and examined the methods of teaching and the facilities in the centre. We gave the centres some remarks on how to improve their services and the real evaluation was done during the second visit," Dr Al Shaikh explained.

He said that a special form was designed to evaluate the centres which are classified into big centres and smaller ones with poor facilities.

"We took into consideration the premises of the centre, the administration and we evaluated each one from educational, administrative, technical as well as technological point of view. We found out some while some memorisation centres are using computers in teaching their students, others are so poor that they are still using the traditional wooden boards method of teaching Quran." The committee in charge of the centres' evaluation had shortlisted six best centres of which two will be selected as the best for this year, one for women and another for men. The winners will be announced at the honouring ceremony on March 16 for men and March 17 for women at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

• UAE