A Creative Writing Competition!!!
All you need to do is pick a prophet or a spiritual icon and eulogize them, in whatever style/genre you’d like to express
This is the first time OnIslam has organized a literary competition. Dear readers, here we are announcing that, in partnership with The Forgotten Writers Foundation, Onislam’s “Culture and Entertainment” page is launching ‘The Messengers’ Creative Writing Competition’. A competition that is all about Eulogy; eulogizing and commending the holy prophets (peace be upon them all).
In order to participate, all you need to do is pick a prophet or a spiritual icon (listed in the guidelines) and eulogize them, in whatever style/genre you’d like to express it. It can be a poem, a prose, a short story, or even an essay. Every writer can post up to 5 pieces, each on a different prophet. Every piece should range from 200 to 500 words.
The idea of this unique competition is that we want writing submissions about praising prophets & spiritual icons; men and/or women, more like contemplating them, finding them as muses, writing to them, connecting to their spirits, understanding God through them.
The message behind this competition is to connect with the past, connect with the spiritual heritage through the figures who are immortal in the Holy books and inside us, and in the pages of history.
Now the surprise is:
we will accept writings about any of the spiritual icons except for the prophets Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses, or Virgin Mary! (Peace be upon them all). And this is for several reasons: The first reason is that most people are likely to choose them. Secondly, many characters in the Holy books deserve further attention and pondering from us. Thirdly, we seek a spiritual unity in this competition, so we seek not to highlight the differences between different beliefs
The creative pieces should reflect the writers’ own feelings, contemplations, and philosophy towards this icon, and how they inspire the writers, and what do they mean to them.
The writers have to search well about the prophets before writing. This is because the submitted pieces will undergo reality checks.
The submitting writers can be Muslims or non-Muslims. They can even be atheists, if they are interested in writing about a spiritual idol or more they find inspiring. The submitted pieces must not slander or despise any religion or belief, nor carry any form of bigotry.
Judges will look for spirituality, creativity, distinctiveness, and craft. So writers should try to write pieces characterized by thereof. The official results of the competition will be exclusively published here, on OnIslam.net, along with some quotes from each winning entry.
The winning entries will all be published in a book under the name of the Award, the organizers, and the winners.
How did this idea come along?
The idea was initiated by The Forgotten Writers Foundation. The mission of this Egyptian foundation is discovering and encouraging new unheralded talented creative writers by giving them the chance of publishing their works. What is unique about this competition is that there are very few writings about this topic. And there is even no single book published about it, not to mention co-written by writers from different beliefs!
The idea was inspired by the ancient Arabian culture that has witnessed the revelation of Islam, in which the mainstream Arabian people were inherently brilliant in poetry and storytelling. It was widely spread in this time a certain kind of verse/poetry. Arabs were used to commend others, be these others kings, gallant warriors, lovers… etc.
The judges will be from both OnIslam.net and The Forgotten writers.
For more information about the guidelines, the organizers, and the judges, click here.
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