The Deanship of Student Affairs at Umm Al-Qura University has recently launched the Arabic Calligraphy Contest for the students of all Saudi universities, in cooperation with the Saudi Scientific Association of Arabic Calligraphy. This contest comes within the framework of the deanship's plan to hold innovative contests that contribute to developing the students' skills and promoting their sense of creativity in different fields.

The deanship launched this contest in order to promote the spirit of fair competition, to attract and encourage talented university students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and reinforce their Arabic Calligraphy skills in the language of the Holy Qur’an. Another aim of the contest is to inculcate positive values and ethics that contribute to refining behavior and self-evaluation, using Qur’anic texts, hadiths, and poetry.

His Excellency Dr. Omar Sunbul, the Dean of Student Affairs, asserted that this contest comes within the objectives that the deanship and the university set for this year. This is in order to promote the concept of developing the students' skills. The themes of this contest tackle the inculcation of positive values and ethics through texts that reinforce the positive values and ethics of society in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Omar added that the contest involves the following scripts: (the Naskh script, the Diwani script, the Diwani Jali script, and the Riqah script). The contestant should be a student at one of the Saudi universities, and is entitled to participate with a maximum of two types of Arabic script, but is confined to the proposed texts in each type of script.

The Head of the Saudi Scientific Association of Arabic Calligraphy, Dr. Abdullah Futaini, pointed out that this contest aims to spread awareness about the importance of Arabic calligraphy, and seeks to develop the university students' creative skills in relation to Arabic calligraphy, giving attention to the outstanding and creative calligraphers, and providing them with guidance and advice in relation to the international calligraphy contests.

It is noteworthy that the contest jury has set several criteria, which are available on the following link: Click here.