The “Qur’an of Qatar” is a project supervised by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Qatar. Its idea began in 1991 and went through many stages that ended after nearly 19 years, from scrutiny and supervision at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, passing through its writing by a Syrian calligrapher, printing it in Turkey, then distributing it globally.
The Naskh script was chosen to be the drawing adopted in the Qur’an of Qatar, due to the harmony between the letter and its movement (which comes completely above it), its shape, drawing and beautiful decoration that make it clear, in addition to the distinction of the letters of the Naskh script by their flexibility and ability to form, without any confusion or crowding between them.
Idea and founding
The idea of establishing the “Qur’an of Qatar” project began within the corridors of the Sharia courts in the State of Qatar in August 1991, after the Director of the Department of Islamic Affairs, Khalifa Jassim Al Kuwari, submitted a memorandum to the Undersecretary of the Sharia Courts, proposing to print a Quran in the name of Qatar, and the idea remained under study and research for 8 years. before you put it up again.
In 1999, the idea was referred to the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Qatar, which prepared a plan that included the controls and standards required to implement the idea in consultation with the IRCICA (Research Center for Islamic History, Arts and Culture in Istanbul) of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to cooperate with it in the field of Arabic calligraphy. The two parties agreed to set up an international calligraphy competition for writing the "Quran of Qatar", and the Father Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, approved it in May 2000.
In cooperation with IRCICA, an international arbitration panel was established consisting of experts in the art of Arabic calligraphy, they are: Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who was appointed as its president, the calligrapher Hassan Chalabi from Turkey, Mustafa Ugur Darman from Turkey, Muhammad Said Sharifi from Algeria, and Muhammad Al-Tamimi Ahad IRCICA members.
In cooperation with IRCICA, an international competition for Arabic calligraphy was launched to write the Qur’an of Qatar (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs)
Qatar International Competition for the Calligraphy of the Holy Qur’an
The Qatar International Quran Calligraphy Competition was launched in August 2001 and 21 calligraphers were invited to participate in the competition to write 5 pages of the Qur'an.
The committee decided to open the participation to the public, and it attracted 120 of the most skilled calligraphers in the Islamic world, and the competition was considered the largest in the history of writing the Qur’an.
Because of the large number of competitors that exceeded expectations, the jury decided, after its first meeting in Doha in May 2002, to transform the competition into 3 stages, after it was from only two stages, and 35 qualified people were chosen to enter the competition, then a comparison was made between them and their number was reduced to 14 qualified to enter the stage. The first in writing two parts of the Holy Quran.
The committee decided to raise the amount of the financial prize for the first place holder from 70,000 dollars to 100,000 dollars, and for the second place from 30 thousand dollars to 50 thousand dollars.
7 contestants from 4 countries passed the first stage, one of them was excluded because he was not able to complete his work in the required time, then two passed to enter the third stage, they are Obaidah Al-Benki and Sabah Mughidi Al-Arbaili, who are considered one of the most famous calligraphers of the 21st century, and asked them to move to Qatar , so that they are close to the supervisors.
In October 2002, the jury in Istanbul announced the limitation of the competition between the qualified contestants, and then signed subscription contracts with them in Doha in order to begin the penultimate stage of writing the Noble Qur’an.
In July 2005, the arbitration panel, at its third meeting, issued a decision to rewrite the Qur’an for the second time, in order to produce it in a single artistic format, and the two calligraphers completed the second writing in June 2006.
The jury met in January 2007 to choose the winning version after a series of reviews, checks and comparisons between the two works, which ruled that their names be withheld so that the selection would be accurate and honest, until the panel announced the victory of the calligrapher Obaidah Muhammad Salih Al-Banki on January 20, 2007.
The international calligrapher Obeida Al-Benki received the sash of merit from the Emir of Qatar during the inauguration ceremony of the Qatar Quran (Qatari Press)
Who is Ubaidah Al-Banky?
The calligrapher Obeida Al-Banki was born in Deir ez-Zor in northern Syria in 1964, and his passion for calligraphy was born shortly thereafter. He is fluent in Arabic calligraphy, so a relationship developed between him and this art that grew with him and made him one of the most famous artists of Arabic calligraphy in the world.
Al-Benki learned the origins of calligraphy at the hands of Ahmed Al-Bari and Muhammad Al-Qadi. Inauguration of the Quran of Qatar.
Obeida Al-Benki has many exhibitions and artistic participations in the Arab and Islamic world, in addition to winning the Qatar Qur’an writing competition, he was also chosen to design the fifth edition of the Qatari currency.
Al-Bunki says that writing the Qur’an twice with a feather during the competition took him 3 and a half years. And cleaning them, marking the shape and adjusting them, and these stages per page take 8 hours of continuous work.
Conditions for writing the Quran of Qatar
The jury of the competition set strict controls for writing the Holy Qur’an from a technical and aesthetic point of view, which are:
Maintaining and adjusting the drawing on all pages of the Qur’an, and not changing the shape of the letters.
Linear density distribution on each page, so there is no crowding or space between words and lines.
Beginning the page with a verse and ending it with a verse in compliance with the method of memorization, and adjusting each part to 20 pages.
The verse ends with its mark in its line, and its end is not placed at the beginning of a new line, as the beginning of the right side of the page is completely devoid of punctuation marks.
Merge the marks of the beginning of the quarter of the party and the party with the punctuation mark of the verse, and distinguish between them in different colors.
3 of the most skilled Turkish decorators were assigned to design the decorations of the Qur’an of Qatar in a special competition and the completion was in 3 months (Al-Jazeera)
Decorate the Quran
The committee concerned with following up the project announced a closed competition for the gilding and decoration of the Qur’an in conjunction with the writing competition, and because Turkey was famous for its expertise in Islamic ornaments and the Qur’an in particular, 3 of the most skilled Turkish decorators were chosen.
The decorators were assigned to design a frame for the pages of the Qur’an, with designs for the signs of the quarters of the parties, the parties, the parts, the prostrations and the stances, the designs for the beginnings and ends of the surahs, the beginning and the end of the Holy Qur’an, with a cover for the Qur’an and the heel, and the completion of all designs was within 3 months.
Pre-press review committee
A local committee was formed with the calligrapher Obeida Al-Banki to cooperate with a committee from Al-Azhar Al-Sharif headed by Sheikh Ahmed Al-Masrawi, in order to check and examine the final version of the Qur’an of Qatar, and approved by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif. .
The review committee, in cooperation with a committee from Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, held 3 rounds of meetings and meetings, during which the Qur’an was checked and reviewed 14 times, in order to seal the original copy of the “Qatar Qur’an” to protect copyright and prevent future manipulation, and in order to obtain the final corrections and corrections on The original version, then the final version was approved in January 2009.
Former Director of the Department of Islamic Affairs, Khalifa Jassim Al-Kuwari, the founder of the idea of "The Qur'an of Qatar" (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs)
Qatar Quran Printing Committees
A committee for printing the Qur’an of Qatar was formed on February 18, 2008, chaired by Saleh Muhammad Al-Marri, and worked on preparing the studies and specifications necessary for printing the Noble Qur’an and producing it in a well-wrapped and bound art form to suit the status of the Qur’an and to demonstrate the importance of working on it.
The committee was also entrusted with the task of choosing the appropriate printing press, and specifications were set, including the use of modern and advanced techniques in the field of preparation, processing, printing and binding.
After selecting the printing press, a special committee directly supervised the printing to ensure the workflow in accordance with the required standards and specifications.
The last stage was the stage of checking and reviewing the printed copies in coordination with the relevant departments in the Ministry, to ensure that no copies were received that contain typographical or linguistic errors or violate the specified specifications.
After printing two copies;
One in Beirut and the other in Istanbul, the committee chose the "MAS" printing press in Turkey for its compliance with the required standards and specifications.
The printing began, in which all the previous committees participated from Doha, Istanbul and Cairo, and the printed copies were reviewed and audited in coordination with the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, then moved to the review in a second phase by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, until the approval of the printing was issued by the Islamic Research Academy in Al-Azhar on the third of March March 2008.
The members of the printing committee met, relying on the notes given by the Al-Azhar Committee, and the stages of implementing the amendments began on the computer, making sure that they matched the original amendments, then reviewing the amended copies and approving them for printing, while preparing the identity of the Qur’an and its cover, and adding new parking spaces in some places.
The Turkish calligrapher Hassan Chalabi is one of the great calligraphers of the modern era and one of the judges of the competition (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs)
During the printing, Ashraf Salama Kamel Gomaa and Hassan Issa Al-Masrawy directly with the Qatari Printing Committee, and the copy was sent directly to Cairo and received by Ahmed Al-Masrawy, who formed a Sharia committee in which 5 sub-committees scrutinize the Qur’an alternately, and each of them consists of 4 members and a chairman, who passes the Qur’an to check it.
Permission to circulate the Qur’an was issued on the tenth of February 2009, and it took 16 weeks to prepare the pages through the stages of correction and reading, after which the binding stage began, which lasted approximately 3 months.
In mid-2009, the first edition of Qatar's Qur'an was completed, and on March 9, 2010, in the celebration of Doha, the capital of Arab culture at the Museum of Islamic Art, the announcement of the start of circulation of the Qur'an of Qatar came.
Fifth Edition
In the fifth edition of the Qur’an of Qatar, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Doha signed a contract with the Turkish “Belnet” Press in mid-2022, in order to print 700,000 copies, with the supply of 3.4 million copies of the Qur’an in 3 sizes within a year.
According to the quantity requested by Qatar in the fifth edition, this will consume 40 tons of imported Finnish paper, and the Qur’an will be written in gilded ink with copper particles, under the supervision of 80 experts working in devices and technical printing, and will not rely on electronic printing only, but will check one page 6 specialized scholars in the Holy Quran.