(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - "Muslim prayer is five times a day and they recite some part of the Qur'an in each of the prayers, and they want to do so in the most beautiful voices," Aamir Ahmed Khan, coordinator of the event, told The Observer on Monday, March 5.
"If somebody wants to become successful or skillful in this art, he has to train also, and there are many very famous reciters in the world that are excelling in this field," the first-year graduate student added.
"It basically requires the mastery of the up and down of the voice, also using several of your muscles in the mouth or throat to correctly pronounce Arabic.”
Organized by Notre Dame’s Muslim Student Association, the event comes as a part of the Prayer Around the World series; a program started approximately eight years ago to promote interfaith understanding and dialogue.
In previous years, Campus Ministry's Muslim prayer services featured PowerPoint presentations that explained prayer posture and the basic pillars of Islam.
This year, Priscilla Wong, associate director of cross-cultural ministry for Campus Ministry, said the MSA chose to focus on the art of Qur'an recitation.
"We thought that we need to bring people together, and sharing how we pray is welcoming people into our faith and culture," Wong said.
"We work with people from that faith community and it's a way that they can hold discussions and also have questions and answers."
The event will host Rasoul Rasoulipour, a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Theology, who will discuss the significance of the prayers and will recite part of the Qur'an, a fundamental part of Muslim daily prayers.
He will also share examples of other people's recitations.
The event will host another speaker, Abdul Rashied Omar, as well as a review of the book "The Art of Reciting the Qur'an" by Kristina Nelson followed by a question and answer session.
"The book review we are doing [is] just to highlight the scholarship that is going into researching and learning about reciting Qur'an," Khan said.
"There are books about it and we chose this book especially because it is by an American professor, so the general audience can connect to it."
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