The Cultural Village Foundation - Katara’s “The Istighfar Award” has generated huge interest around the world receiving over 6,000 entries from 45 countries, out of which 2,847 qualified for the award.
Announced in April, the online competition was open to local and international participation.
From the 2,847 participants, 1,019 came from Maghreb countries; 730 from Egypt, Sudan and Somalia; 613 from Levant and Iraq; 349 from the Gulf states and Yemen and 136 from non-Arab countries.
The largest number of participants came from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Syria. There were 46 participants from Qatar.
The award comprised four categories with the theme seeking forgiveness (Istighfar) and with big cash prizes at stake for the winners.
The first category was short story writing with a prize of $20,000, which was won by Muhammad Zaki from Syria.
The second category was short play writing with a prize of $15,000 won by Asma Ali Zaytoun from Jordan.
The third category was poetry writing with a prize of $10,000 won by Mohamed Ahmed Hassan from Egypt.
The fourth category was dedicated to Arabic calligraphy writing of the sentence “Ask forgiveness from Allah” with a prize of $5,000 with Bilal Mukhtar Salah from Egypt emerging as winner.
