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QNA
Doha
The Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (Awqaf) opened 36 mosques and rebuilt five old mosques this year as part of its strategy to cope with the country's expanding urban population.
The ministry, in a report, has showcased the international Holy Quran competition as its biggest achievement in 2016, which was held recently in Doha, as it underlines Qatar's efforts to take care of the Holy Quran and its people.
The competition was the biggest internationally, with a first prize of QR 1 million and valuable awards for 38 distinguished participants from 21 countries across three continents.
The Sheikh Jassim Bin Mohamed Holy Quran competition drew a wide participation from 278 Qatari females and 88 males, while a total of 1,258 participants took part in the juniors'contest.
In order to enhance the role of Holy Quran teaching centres, the ministry organised several activities and events, including a course on pronunciation, in which 60 teachers participated, while 600 students benefited from Quran summer courses.
Besides, more than 25,000 students took part in the 55th annual Quran memorising competition held in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
In a related effort, the year 2015-16 saw the launch and distribution of the third edition of Mushaf Qatar, in which 672,000 copies were given out to mosques, distributed to the public at the ministry's heritage hall, besides being available on smartphones through a mobile application.
In the endowments sector, the ministry's general department of endowments launched a campaign in support of Quran centres across the country. The endowment is a real estate project that consists of two buildings at Doha's Bin Mahmoud area at a cost of QR70 million and an expected annual revenue of QR 8 million.
The Zakat Fund spent QR36 million on thousands of deserving families, besides its efforts to raise awareness of zakat.
As part of cultural and awareness projects, the ministry organised several events, notably the Obedience and Forgiveness event last Ramadan, which was accompanied by the third edition of Ramadan forum, which was held in cooperation with Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center and focused on issued related to Muslim experiences in tolerance and coexistence.
Partnering with domestic institutions, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center achieved great success in educating on Qatari heritage and Islamic culture. This year, the centre received nearly 10,000 visitors of different nationalities and organised mosque tourism programmes, as well as distributed more than 67,000 preaching material in different languages. The centre also organised courses for non-Arab speaking expats on Arabic language and the Qatari culture.
The ministry's list of achievements includes holding the 11th rehabilitation course for Qatari imams and sermon givers.
The Awqaf Ministry held a series of lectures at Imam Abdul Wahhab Mosque in addition to hundreds of lectures of Tuesday's weekly meet at state mosques so as to consolidate the ministry's preaching message, educate society sectors and protect the young people from extremist thought.
The list of 2016 events included a faith competition to consolidate it in the minds of school students. The ministry also organized the fifth edition of the family entertainment spring festival as part of cooperation between the ministry and state institutions working in the family services sector.
The ministry has until this year printed more than 1 million copies of religious books and other books that address social, economic and cultural contemporary issues.
As the entity in charge of Hajj affairs, the ministry managed this year, as in previous years, to successfully organise and supervise Qatar pilgrims and the Hajj season.
