The chief scholar and veteran Quran reader of the Makkah Holy Mosque, Dr Abdul Rahman Al Sudais, was chosen as the Dubai International Holy Quran Award’s (DIHQA) 9th Islamic Personality of the Year. Dr Saeed Hareb, the vice-chairman of the DIHQA Organising Committee, made the announcement. “Dr Al Sudais has been selected for his devotion to the Quran and Islam,” he said. The winner has been an Imam for 22 years. “His remarkable and ear-catching intonation of the Quran during the Haj season and during the Taraweeh [special night prayers during Ramadan] in the holy mosque has made him very famous and beloved among the Muslim community,” said Dr Hareb. “He became a recognised personality among the Muslim community.”
Other important events:
1672 Poland surrenders the Ukraine to the Turks after an invasion.
1842 The first telegraph cable is laid by Samuel Morse in New York harbour.
1867 US take formal possession of Alaska from Russia.
1892 The first long-distance telephone line is opened between Chicago and New York.
1898 The American flag is raised in Puerto Rico shortly before Spain formally relinquishes control of the island to the United States.
1963 British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan resigns due to ill health.
1944 Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia during the Second World War.
1045 Venezuelan President Isaías Medina Angarita is overthrown in a military coup.
1969 US federal government bans artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.
1981 Andreas Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement wins 48 per cent in national elections, becoming Greece’s first leftist government.
1985 African National Congress poet Benjamin Moloise is hanged in Pretoria central prison.
1989 Gunmen assassinate Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan at a campaign rally outside Bogota.
1989 East German Communist party leader Erich Honecker quits.
1991 Commonwealth lifts ban on South Africa after 15 years.
1993 UN oil embargo takes effect against Haiti.
1995 Pakistan begins pulling back soldiers from the Indian border.
1998 Over 1,000 people are killed when a petroleum pipeline explodes in Nigeria.
2000 Fighting between Nigeria’s Hausa and Yoruba tribes leaves 100 dead in Lagos.
2004 India’s most wanted bandit Veerappan is killed in a shootout with security forces.
2006 Chinese women win their first gymnastics World Championship in Denmark
2007 Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto makes a tearful return to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.
2009 A suicide bomber kills seven commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and up to 42 other people in an area of southeastern Iran.
2010 Canadian BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) signs a new agreement with the UAE to enable advanced e-government services.
2011 The Sharjah Cricket Stadium enters the Guinness Book of World Records for hosting the maximum number of one-day International matches.
2013 Saudi Arabia rejects membership of the UN Security Council, a day after it was elected to the body.
