Holy Quran transforms life of prisoners

Yassin Ibrahim Moussa from Somalia and Hamoud-ul-Zaman Afzal from Pakistan were the last contestants to perform on the final day of the competition on Tuesday.

They were confident and calm and both are registered in the DIHQA project for teaching the Holy Quran to prisoners.

Under the project, prisoners who memorise the entire Holy Quran get 15 years' remission in their jail term; 10 years' remission for memorisation of 20 chapters, five years' pardon for 10 chapters and one-year remission for memorising five chapters.

Both Yassin and Hamoud were serving 25-year jail terms and got their sentences reduced by five years after passing the test for the recitation of 10 chapters of the Holy Book in prison.

Although they know that their participation in the local Holy Quran Competition would not be of any benefit to them in getting their terms reduced, they were enthusiastic about the experience, stressing that learning the Holy Quran had made them better persons.

Speaking to newsmen, Yassin, 25, said that bad company had landed him into jail. He has served 14 months in prison and began learning the Holy Quran only nine months ago with the objective of getting his jail term reduced.

"Although this was my prime objective when I began memorising the Quran, it guided me to the truth and reformed my behaviour. I am now a committed Muslim and I ask God for forgiveness for what I did in the past. I thank God for enabling me to memorise 20 chapters in only nine months. I will appear for the second test of memorisation in the prison next month," Yassin said.

He said that if he won in the local competition he would give the money to his family. Yassin is unmarried and has been living in the UAE with his family for 20 years.

For Hamoud, before the memorisation of the Holy Quran project for prison inmates was launched he used to read the Holy Quran but never tried to memorise it.

The 27-year-old Pakistani was sentenced to life for possessing drug.

Before his conviction, he was an assistant manager in a private company.

Hamoud has also managed to get five years of his jail term waived by memorising 10 chapters of the Holy Quran.

He entered the local competition in the 10-chapter category but he is about to complete the memorisation of 20 chapters and he also plans to appear for a test next month to get his term further reduced.

He said learning the Holy Quran had brought about a tremendous change in his life.

The reason that he was able to memorise it in a short span of time was because he not only memorised it but also taught it to fellow inmates.

Hamoud believes that the project had positive impact on prisoners with a large number of them now engaged in memorisation; problems like fighting among prisoners are gradually disappearing.

A UAE resident for three years before entering the jail, Hamoud is dreaming of going back to his home country where he will engage himself only in legal business, particularly in the trade of used cars and machines.

"I was lucky to have enrolled in the Quran memorisation project which has changed my life and given me a sense of peace and tranquillity."