Reciting competition The Voice Quran promises more than just thawab

Photo: Some of the participants of The Voice Quran / Courtesy of The Voice Quran

With a page out of MBC’s The Voice Kids, the TV singing competition with almost 2 million YouTube subscribers, Egyptian engineer Yasser Al Awadi has created a reality TV competition that’s offering youngsters EGP 150,000 ($8,495) in prizes for their Quran-reciting skills.

It all began when Yasser was performing the haj earlier this year. “After standing at Mount Arafat to pray, it hit me that I wanted kids to learn more about the Holy Quran and our religion,” he told My Salaam. He had a clear idea of what he wanted: to foster the Quran-reciting talents of children up to the age of 14 on a small-screen production similar to the world’s best-known reality TV competition formats.

The thought stayed in Yasser’s head until he approached his friend, Ali Fayez, a TV presenter on the satellite channel Al Assema. Together, they decided it was time to set things in motion. After getting approval from Al-Azhar University, all that was left was to source the funds to create a nation-wide competition.