The Burda Award is one of the most important initiatives launched by the ministry over the past 14 years not only on the local level, but globally, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, said yesterday after announcing the winners of the fourteenth session of the award.

The Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development organises the annual Al Burda Award competition to celebrate the birth of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him), an event that is of great importance to Muslims. The award honours winners of different competitions related to the birth of Prophet Mohammed and his honourable biography.

The award is a poetry competition open to all local and non-local poets from within and outside the UAE in classical and Nabaty verse in the purpose of praising the Prophet and his biography. The award also has two other competitions. These are Arabic calligraphy (both classical and modern or "Huroofy") and the International traditional ornamentation competition.

The award now holds a distinguished position as a unique event in the fields of poetic and artistic creativity. The UAE is one of the most important capitals of culture and art on Arab and international levels, and the development of the award each year is the reason behind its continuity, he further assured.

Sheikh Nahyan explained that the Burda Award reinforced the status of the Arabic language, as the UAE has become one of the main countries in the region concerned with cultural and cognitive development through strengthening the role of culture, arts, and literature, and support of talented creators and innovators by providing a suitable environment for creativity.

He pointed out that knowledge and culture are important components of our renaissance, which is why culture receives the support of the leadership represented by His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

The aim of the Burda award was to introduce to the UAE society the beauty of Islamic art and its aesthetics, and to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation to exert more effort and time researching the biography of the Prophet Mohammed, Sheikh Nahyan explained.

Results of the Burda Award were as follows: Arabic Calligraphy category: Mahfouz Thou Al Noun Younis of Iraq (1st); Abdo Mohammed Hassan Al Gammal of Egypt (2nd), Mohammed Jaber Al Sayed Abou El Aela of Egypt (3rd), Munir Tahrawi of Algeria (4th), and Mohsen Abadi of Iran (5th).

Ornamentation category, Firdaus Baqal (Turkey, 1st), Nihal Tozjan (Turkey, 2nd), Hal Shah Alam Shah Mansoor (Uzbekistan, 3rd), Zainab Rhnma and Elham Afrouz Nfouti, (both from Iran, who were 4th and 5th, respectively).

Persian Calligraphy category: Muhannad Waleed Khalil (Canada, 1st), Ihsan Hakem Kazim (Iraq, 2nd), Tag Al Ser Hassan (Sudan, 3rd), Mahmoud Mohamed Farah (Canada, 4th), and Ibrahim Al Hassoun (Syria, 5th).

Arabic Poetry category: Mustafa Qasim Abbas (Syria, 1st), Zahir Abdul Habib Al-Qurashi (Yemen, 2nd), Hisham Al Daqqaq (Morocco, 3rd), and Sayed Mohammad Abdel Razek Abdel Al (Egypt, 4th).

Nabaty Poetry category: Ahmed bin Saeed Bin Amer Al Maamari (Oman, 1st), Abdulaziz bin Hamad bin Mohammed Al Amiri (Oman, 2nd), Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Abd Al Fadeel (Egypt, 3rd), and Abdul Aziz Ibrahim Al-Mohammad (Syria, 4th).