China's fourth national Koran chanting contest concluded Thursday in Beijing.

Abudok Yomu from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Cheng Rui from Shanxi Province won the first prizes for males and females respectively.

Sponsored by the Islamic Association of China, the four-day event was attended by 41 people from different parts and ethnic groups of China, sources said.

The contest will encourage Islamic religious workers and believers to chant the Koran in line with the required standards, and will stimulate them to learn and inherit more of the Islamic culture, said Chen Guangyuan, chairman of the association.

Chen added that the contest has exposed quite a few excellent Koran chanters for China's Islam.

Cheng Rui, the female first prize winner, is an Arabic language teacher in a local school. "It is not easy to chant the Koran well, and it takes a lot of learning," she said.

She expressed her thanks to the Islamic Association of China, saying she will spend more time studying the Koran.

So far, more than 20 top Chinese chanters have attended a series of international contests on Koran chanting, and received positive appraisals at home and abroad, according to sources.

Diplomats from the embassies of Egypt, Pakistan and some other countries to China were also invited to the ceremony as honored guests.

(Xinhua 05/31/2001)