Every year during Ramadan, the prestigious International Holy Koran Competition brings young Quran reciters from across the world to Cairo, Egypt. The competition tests not only their ability to memorise the Quran but also their skill in reciting it, drawing contestants from around the world, some as young as seven.
Greg Barker’s documentary Koran by Heart takes us inside this remarkable competition through the experiences of three 10-year-old contestants: Nabiollah Saidoff from Tajikistan, Rifdha Rasheed from the Maldives and Djamil Djieng from Senegal.
What makes the film compelling is that the competition itself is only part of the story. Barker uses the children’s journeys to explore what the Quran means to Muslims living in vastly different cultural, social and political contexts.
Nabiollah, from the mountainous region of Tajikistan, quickly becomes one of the film’s most memorable figures. He does not speak Arabic, yet he memorised the Quran in less than a year. Confident and articulate among adults, he describes reciting with his eyes closed and imagining the pages of the Quran in his mind.
There is an almost musical quality to the way he approaches recitation. He instinctively understands its rhythms and brings them to the surface when he performs. His talent is so striking that one of the competition’s prominent judges is moved to tears.
Yet Nabiollah’s story also reveals the tensions surrounding religious education in his home country. His madrasa has been shut down, and he struggles to gain admission to a new city school where he can study subjects beyond the Quran. His remarkable ability to memorise and recite the Quran exists alongside his desire for a broader education.
Rifdha Rasheed offers a different perspective. One of the few girls participating in the competition, she comes from the Maldives and excels academically at school. Her father travels with her to Cairo, but the unfamiliar environment and pressure of competition leave her nervous before her recitations. She wishes her mother could be there to support her.
Despite having to compete in the middle of the night, Rifdha manages to perform well. Away from the competition, we also see a young girl with ambitions. She dreams of becoming a marine explorer, a reminder that devotion to the Quran and aspirations for a life beyond religious study are not mutually exclusive.
Djamil Djieng comes from Dakar, Senegal, where his father is a local imam. His relationship with the Quran is rooted in family and upbringing. He tells us that before anything else, his father taught him the Quran.
Together, the three children give the film its emotional centre. They come from different countries, speak different languages and grow up in very different circumstances. Yet they share an extraordinary connection through a text that has shaped their families, communities and identities.
This is perhaps where Koran by Heart is at its most powerful. It does not present Muslims as a single, uniform community. Instead, it reveals the enormous diversity within the Muslim world while showing how the Quran creates a point of connection across those differences.
The film also gives viewers an opportunity to appreciate the Quran not simply as a religious text, but as something experienced through sound, memory and recitation. The children do not merely reproduce words they have memorised. They inhabit them, carrying thousands of verses in their memories and bringing them to life through their voices.
That idea gives the film its deeper resonance. Watching children from different corners of the world recite the same verses in a language some of them do not speak offers a glimpse into the unique relationship Muslims have with the Quran.
By the time Koran by Heart ends, the competition has become almost secondary. What remains is an intimate portrait of childhood, faith, family and memory, and a deeper appreciation of the remarkable place the Quran occupies in the lives of Muslims around the world.