Third Katara Prize for Prophet’s Poet ends with grand ceremony

Six winners of the Third Katara Prize for Prophet’s Poet competition were awarded prizes at a grand ceremony held at Katara’s Opera House on Saturday evening. The award ceremony was attended by ministers, diplomats and a number of other dignitaries.
Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti, general manager of Katara – the Cultural Village, presented the prizes to the winners. The competition featuring fresh and original Arabic poems on Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was divided into two categories – classic (Faseeh) and colloquial (Nabti). Three winners were selected in each category from 15 shortlisted candidates in each.
In the classic category, Egyptian poet Mohamed Ismail Suwailim won the first position, taking home a cash prize of QR1mn. Lebanese poet Hassan Al Askari al-Miqdad came second, winning QR700,000, while Moroccan poet Hassan Ahmu al-Ahmadi won the third prize worth QR400,000.
In the colloquial category, Kuwaiti poet Mohamed al-Maghairafi al-Harbi came first, winning QR1mn. Sultan Bandar al-Amr al-Ajmi, also a Kuwaiti, won the second prize worth QR700,000, and Qatari poet Salem Mohamed Ali al-Nabit al-Merri came third, winning QR400,000. Commenting on the Prize, Dr al-Sulaiti said it has grown to become a coveted international award in terms of participation, which has been growing every year, as well as the quality of entries. The Prize has won critical acclaim on the global level, he added. The entries were judged by panels comprising experts at various levels. There were panels to shortlist the entries, based on their quality, and they were not given the names of the candidates. Another panel in the final round met with the shortlisted candidates from the two categories to select the winners, said Dr al-Sulaiti. Thirty poems were shortlisted for the final round (15 in each category) from a total of 942 entries from across the Arab region and several non-Arab countries.
These included poems by 86 women and 46 candidates from non-Arab countries. There were 853 entries in the classic category and 89 entries in the colloquial category. The final round of the competition was held at Katara over four days from last Wednesday until Saturday. The three winners in each category were selected from five candidates shortlisted in the first phase of the final round. The 30 shortlisted poems that entered the final round will be published by Katara Publishing House in a book and also be made available in the CD format. Al Rayyan Bank was the official sponsor of the event, Qatar Television the media partner and Qanat Al Rasool the strategic partner.