Khaberni - The Egyptian TV program "State of Recitation," which features a number of Quranic reciters, caused a significant stir after the exclusion of a contestant who engaged in a discussion with a member of the evaluation panel to prove the validity of his position.
The name of the contestant, Mohamed Sami, dominated social media trends after his exclusion from the competition for receiving a low score despite what followers considered his good performance and voice, leading to a fierce attack on Sheikh Taha Al-Numani, who gave the young man a lower score compared to his peers on the judging panel after engaging him in a discussion following one of his remarks.
Al-Numani responded in a video on his Facebook page to defend himself against a wave of attacks, asserting that he does not deal with the matter with personal motives, and that he supports the young man and other contestants in the State of Recitation.
One of the remarks about the young man's recitation in the competition was that he paused at a certain verse, but he replied that it is "permissible" to stop at this point in the Quranic verse, before the judge argued that one "must learn" and adopt the rulings set by scholars.
During the scoring stage, the young man received a score of 98 from judge Hassan Abdel-Nabi, agent of the Al-Azhar Quran Review Committee, and then Al-Numani gave him a score of 92, which caused a decrease in his total that pushed him out of the competition.
This situation turned into a wave of severe attacks on Al-Numani, with many considering it "unfair" due to the discussion between them in the episode, before Al-Numani came out to defend himself and say that he did not cause his elimination and that he supports all contestants.
In a video posted on Facebook, he said: "All the young people in the competition are like brothers to me and I hold them in high esteem, and Sheikh Mohamed Sami himself knows and is sure that I support him, and I love all the youth and wish them success and good luck and I never take anything personally."
The program State of Recitation is an Egyptian competition program for memorizers and reciters of the Holy Quran, sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments. The first-place winner receives one million Egyptian pounds, in addition to recording the entire Quran and leading prayers in Al-Hussain Mosque in downtown Cairo during the upcoming Ramadan, and it is broadcast live.
