Saturday 06/December/2025 – 04:05 PM
Dr. Muhammad Al-Duwaini, Undersecretary of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, participated today, Saturday, in the launch of the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments – the thirty-second edition. For the International Holy Quran Competition –This took place at the Grand Mosque of Egypt in the New Capital, in the presence of His Eminence Dr. Osama Al-Azhari, Minister of Endowments, Dr. Nazir Ayyad, Mufti of the Republic, and a number of ministers, officials and participants in the competition from Egypt and abroad.
Undersecretary of Al-Azhar: We aim with the Cultural Book Project to build a personality who memorizes the Qur’an along with its purposes and objectives
During his speech at the opening of the competition, the Undersecretary of Al-Azhar expressed his thanks for the great effort made by the Ministry of Endowments in organizing this competition, which enjoys the generous patronage of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Republic, who always affirms that serving the Book of God Almighty and sponsoring its campaign is a solid foundation in the state’s project to build humanity. He works to provide all forms of support to develop the Holy Qur’an competitions, expand their scope, and enhance Egypt’s presence on the global Qur’anic map, in the belief that caring for the Qur’an is caring for identity, fortifying awareness, and supporting the values of peace. And construction, stressing that the participation in this competition from countries around the world is evidence and witness to Egypt’s Qur’anic and scientific status, and an event that unites hearts on a common word, in which young people compete in the field of goodness, and in which tongues unite in reciting the words of God Almighty.
He said that today’s meeting is a meeting at the table of the Holy Qur’an, the light whose light never fades, the guidance whose paths never stray, and the book whose wonders and wisdom never expire. It is the solid rope of God, the wise remembrance, and the straight path. It is a meeting in Egypt – the land of the noble Al-Azhar – and in the hospitality of the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments to open this global competition. It embodies the Egyptian state’s leadership role in serving the Book of God Almighty, and confirms its constant care. By campaigning and preserving it, and caring for everything related to it in terms of education, proficiency, understanding, and contemplation, as the competition proves in its successive sessions, that Egypt has a firm vision that combines the authenticity of heritage with the data of progress, and seeks to produce a generation capable of carrying the message of the Qur’an throughout the world, a generation that combines the precision of mastery, the sublimity of values, and the nobility of morals.
He stressed that Egypt was and will always remain the state of the Qur’an and the state of recitation. Egypt is the home of revelation. It is the only country on whose land God was revealed, and God spoke to our master Moses in it. If Egypt is concerned with the Qur’an, then the Qur’an has honored Egypt, mentioning it explicitly five times, and implicitly dozens of times, and describing it as a safe and blessed land. Al-Azhar Al-Sharif has taken upon itself the responsibility of communicating this Qur’an, and has spread its recitation, intonation, and mastery of its reading through its bodies and departments, including eleven thousand books across the governorates of the Republic, as well as memorization via the Internet, through which Al-Azhar publishes this Qur’anic message.
He explained that Al-Azhar adopted, through these writings, the project of the cultural book, in which Al-Azhar is concerned with building an original, balanced, thinking, rational, critical personality that brings together the verses and words of the Qur’an to understand its intentions and objectives. And if the land of Canaan was the first to carry to the world recordings of the Qur’an with the voices of the best and most skilled readers, then a new generation is blossoming today in Egypt to complete the message after them. Al-Azhar Al-Sharif presented thirty voices from its youth to carry the honor of recording the Qur’an. The Al-Azhari student Qur’an, which is broadcast on radio and channels, connects the past with the present, and renews the glories of the Egyptian recitation state in a new guise.
The Undersecretary of Al-Azhar pointed out that the Holy Qur’an is an integrated civilizational building project that moved man from the darkness of chaos to the light of stability and order, from the logic of domination to the balance of truth and justice, and from the narrowness of desires to the breadth of values and message. Its revelation constituted a watershed moment in human history. As he rearranged the relationship between man and his Lord, between man and himself, between man and his society, and between man and the universe around him, he established the foundations for building human civilization on solid foundations, foremost of which is honoring man as a successor on earth and responsible for its construction. God Almighty said: “And We have certainly honored the children of Adam.”
He continued that the Qur’an established civilization on the basis of science, making reading the first path to guidance, contemplation an act of worship, and looking at the universe a path to faith. The Qur’an also contributed to consolidating the values of work, mastery, honesty, and responsibility. His effects did not stop at the borders of the Muslim community, but rather his giving extended to influence the course of all human civilization, through the civilizational model he presented based on coexistence, respect for humans, protecting dignity, and consolidating the culture of dialogue and acquaintance, which made many contemporary humanitarian principles find their deep roots in the Qur’anic guidance.
The Undersecretary of Al-Azhar called for people to rally around the Holy Qur’an, not as a heritage to be recited, but rather as a curriculum that is implemented, values that are lived, and a message that directs the human movement towards justice, peace, and reconstruction, while consciously invoking the purposes of the Qur’an, not within the limits of slogans, but rather at the heart of policies, educational curricula, media discourse, and human building. The purposes of the Holy Qur’an are still capable – if they are properly understood and revealed – to create a balanced human being, a cohesive society, and a mature civilization that combines strength and justice, progress and morality, and creativity and responsibility. This is the message that the Qur’an still carries to humanity today as it carried it yesterday, and it will continue to carry it as long as the heavens and the earth exist.
At the conclusion of his speech, the Undersecretary of Al-Azhar affirmed that the Holy Qur’an – in light of the suffering our nation is suffering from – is a book of faith, moral and human values, a source of morals and perfections, and an explanation of the reasons for glory, victory and sovereignty. We in Egypt renew our pledge to remain servants of the Book of God, supportive of its campaign, believing that memorizing the Qur’an, mastering it, and acting upon it is the origin of renaissance, the key to goodness, and the way to create generations capable of carrying the message of Islam throughout all parts of the world. We hope that this competition will open doors for us in relating to the Holy Qur’an. So that we may have within us, as God intended, a strong rope by which the nation will protect itself from division and diaspora, and a straight path that will guide it to glory and guidance.
