Ramadan news and notes (3):
Quran competitions on the night of nights and Metwalli still making major waves

(cairolive.com, December 11, 2001)

Religion
Quran competitions on the night of nights
Lailat Al-Qadr, a night considered by Muslims to be of utmost spiritual importance, falls sometime in the last ten days of Ramadan. Most scholars have determined the true date of Lailat Al-Qadr to be the 27th night of the holy month, which means that this year it falls between Tuesday December 11 and Wednesday the 12th.

As always, Ramadan has meant a plethora of Quranic reading and memorization competitions, the culmination of which will be on Lailat Al-Qadr, when President Hosni Mubarak hands out prizes to the winners at a ceremony to be held at the Nasr City conference center. 100 young people from 65 nations participated in this year's competition. The judges were from Morocco, Tunis, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and early indicators, reports Al-Ahram, show that the lions' share of the winning youth are Egyptian. The total value of the prizes to be given away is LE15 million.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian youth from Fayoum also picked up the first prize in in another international Quranic recitation and interpretation competition -- this one in Saudi Arabia, in which 36 countries participated.


Television
Metwalli still making major waves
The popular TV drama A'ilat Al-Hagg Metwalli continues to make waves, with a great deal of press space and air time across the Arab world dedicated to discussing the virtues and faults of the show. Most have been concentrating on the show's premise of a man marrying four wives, posing questions like, "Is it really possible from a man's point of view?", and "Why would the women agree?" The discussions have resulted in revelations that yes, indeed, there are women and men out there who have absolutely no problem with polygamy. In fact, on Dream TV on Sunday night, the young woman who plays Metwalli's fourth wife on the show admitted that in real life, she is a "second" wife. Why did she agree to share her husband? Because of her intense love for him, she said.

Other commentators said that in the West, men with excess sexual impulses end up having affairs with other women, while in the Muslim world, they legitimize those relationships via marriage. The commentators thus find it strange that Westerners complain of polygamy even though it ends up protecting the rights of the women and any possible children that result from such unions.

Amongst the most interesting things said in the press is that Metwalli -- played by veteran actor Nour El-Sherif -- must be a heavy Viagra user to be able to keep all his wives happy.

A cartoon by Mustafa Hussein and Ahmed Ragab in Al-Akhbar shows Metwalli suggesting to his first wife Amina that he try to marry US National Security chief Condoleeza Rice -- perhaps then the Americans will do something positive for the Palestinians, the cartoon Metwalli quips.

Read Cairolive's political take on the show here.

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