Winners of Prophet’s Poet Award announced

The prestigious Prophet’s (PBUH) Poet Award came to an end at the Cultural Village Foundation-Katara, with a closing ceremony held at Katara’s Opera House, late on Friday.
The ceremony, held in the presence of the General Manager of Katara, Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, was attended by the organising committee, poets, and media personnel. The annual festival comes under the title ‘Poetry’s Beauty Blossoms When Describing the Best of Mankind’.
Contestants from various parts of the Arab world aimed to incorporate the Classic and Nabati styles (Nabati is a popular dialect), into their compositions for the competition. Finalists drawn from each category went through four stages of selection. For the first stage, eight poets were selected from the present fifteen. In the second phase of the competition, five poets were selected to compete for the top three places from each category. Katara has dedicated a number of cash awards totalling QR4,200,000, for both categories, Classic and Nabati, to highlight the significance of the event.
From the classic style, awards were presented to the top three poets. The first position was awarded to the poet Abdullah bin Mohamed Al Enzi from Saudi Arabia, who received a financial award of QR1m. The second position went to the poet Mohamed Ahmad Darkoushi from Syria and consisted of a financial award of QR700,000, while the third position went to the poet Sameer Mostafa Farag from Egypt who received QR400,000.
The Nabati Style category too, saw the selection of the top three poets. Fayez bin Serhan Al Thebeti from Saudi Arabia was the first place winner and receiving a prize of QR1m. The poet Mohamed bin Abdlhadi Al Atibi, also from Saudi Arabia was placed second, and was awarded a prize of QR700,000, while the poet Abdullah Khaled Bani Khaled from Bahrain went on to win the third position and received QR400,000.
Aside from the qualification rounds, various other institutes such as Qatar Charity, Ehsan, Childhood Cultural Center and Raf, participated in the second edition of the festival. Qatar Charity had set up a booth to introduce the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) story through visuals and text. The morning events were dedicated to school children, who took part in numerous interactive sessions, while visitors to the evening sessions engrossed themselves in various Islamic lectures, seminars, and numerous competitions.
A key objective of Katara's Award for the Prophet's Poet is to highlight the importance of poetry and the Arabic language, while encouraging unity across the Muslim World. This objective is in tandem with Katara’s efforts to strengthen ties between the youth, society and Arab identity. Those attending the festival will in turn be introduced to new genres of poetry and the impact it has on our culture and community.