A Palestinian-American Hollywood Script Writer Livens up the Quran Memorizing Competition in Saudi

Riyadh, MINA – A Palestinian-American Hollywood film and television screenwriter, Yasser Omar Shaheen, enlivened the international call to prayer and memorization competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Shaheen performed with her melodious voice and recitation of the Quran at the event which had a total prize pool of SR12 million ($3.2 million).

“My life is a mixture of memorizing and reading the Quran and writing scripts in Hollywood, for which I have supervised the production of more than 130 programs, produced 14 documentaries, and contributed to several shows on TV channels in Arab and Islamic countries,” said Shaheen as quoted from Arab News on Sunday.

He enjoys teaching Muslim children the verses of the Quran and the rules of intonation at mosques in Dallas, Texas. Shaheen has also worked as a faculty member at the University of San Jose in California.

Several competitions led to his participation in “Otr Elkalam” and its first episode featured 32 contestants from around the world, Quran recitation and last year’s call to prayer, Younes Gharbi from Morocco and Mohsen Kara from Turkiye respectively.

The “Otr Elkalam” competition is designed to reveal the rich cultural diversity of the Islamic world and the vocal methods of reciting the Koran and reciting the call to prayer.

Out of more than 50,000 participants from 165 countries, 50 advanced to the final stage, which was held in Riyadh.

Another selection process by the main judges then left 32 contestants, 16 for each type of competition. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)