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Saudi Gazette report
CUSTODIAN of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman has donated the prize money of the Islamic Personality of the Year Award to the Holy Qur’an memorization centers around the world. This was announced by Sheikh Saleh Al-Asheikh, minister of Islamic Affairs, Call and Guidance. The Dubai International Holy Qur’an Award (DIHQA) named King Salman as the Islamic Personality of the Year 2017 and on the King’s behalf Sheikh Saleh received the award that included a prize money of one million UAE dirham and a citation from Sheikh Ahmad Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai on Thursday.
King Salman, who arrived in Makkah to spend the last 10 days of Ramadan in the vicinity of the Holy Kaaba, received at Al-Safa Palace prominent Islamic scholars, sheikhs, government officials, as well the Grand Mosque imams, muezzins, and sadins of Kaaba, who came to greet him.
More than two million worshipers thronged the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah for Friday prayers and the first two days of Qiyamullail. Addressing the faithful at the Grand Mosque on Thursday night, Sheikh Abdurahman Al-Sudais, head of the Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques, called for taking maximum benefits of the last 10 days of Ramadan through increasing prayers and supplications. He sought the cooperation of the faithful in preserving the sanctity and cleanliness of the Two Holy Mosques.
Al-Sudais urged those who sit in i’tikaf to adhere fully to the instructions issued by the presidency in this regard. He called on the faithful to abide by the directives of King Salman to leave mataf (circumambulation area around Kaaba) fully for those performing the ritual of tawaf. “You have to obey the instructions of the Haram security men, especially its crowd control wing, during your movement in the mosque and prefer the expanded areas at peak time of prayers,” he said.
In their Friday sermons, Sheikh Khaled Al-Ghamdi, imam and khateeb of the Grand Mosque, and Sheikh Abdulmohsen Al-Qassim, imam and khateeb of the Prophet’s Mosque, urged believers to engage more in supplications and worship by taking advantage of the most blissful hours of life in the remaining days of the holy month.
