‘Purpose of ad unclear’

Who’s beneficiary?

ABy Ahmad Al Sarraf

Kuwaiti charity society has placed dozens or perhaps hundreds of expensive billboards on sidewalks along many streets in Kuwait, inviting the citizens and residents to memorize the Surah Al-Baqarah from the Holy Quran, calling it a blessing on the health of young people.

Of course the text of the advertisement is vague and inaccurate. However, its purpose remains unknown. Will blessing come from memorizing the Surah? What is the relationship between the blessing and wellness? Is there any tangible and real evidence that the one who memorizes the Surah Al-Baqarah (even if he is a foreigner) will be blessed if he is sick, for example, and recover from his illness? Well, no one can say for sure.

There is also no doubt that this advertisement cost the concerned charity a lot of money. When I contacted the charity after copying the phone number from the billboard I was told given the name of the supervisor of the society and was told to register my name at the society institute to memorize the Surrah in the shortest time.

There is no doubt the purpose of the advert is unclear. However, it is unconceivable that a charity spends more than $200,000 to place 200 billboards of 180 cm x 120 cm side inviting people to visit the charity house to memorize Surah Al-Baqarah, especially the time of memorizing has almost vanished and become almost unnecessary.

Understanding the text is much more important than memorizing it and practicing what we understand is much more important than memorizing and understanding.

Surah Al-Baqarah and the Holy

Al-Sarraf

Quran are available in full on a cell phone and anyone who can read that advert, can listen to the Surah Al-Baqarah and others dozens of times per day.

In addition to the above, there are several government and individual institutions that annually organize dozens of Holy Quran memorization contests, not only one Surah, and give away valuable prizes to the participants, so what is the purpose of setting up a society and spend all this money on an exercise that is carried out by dozens of other parties?

There is no doubt there is someone benefiting from the advertisements which are vague in objective and meaning. There is no clear goal to spend all this money to inform a segment of people that memorizing Surah Al-Baqarah is a blessing for wellness. Who is the beneficiary behind promoting this vague idea?

Would not it have been more worthwhile to spend the money on teaching and educating children of the bedoun? Does the charity in question not know what to do with the money it collected? Or is spending on such projects more useful materially for those who run the society?

We hope to hear a response from the concerned society and an explanation for its behavior.

Perhaps I am one of the first persons trying to uncover some of the preachers who wear gold rings and Western outfits such as Amr Khaled, who recently appeared in a television ad in which he said that the true Muslim is one who eats chicken of a certain company, and that fasting is not complete in the month of Ramadan without eating this chicken.

He then appeared in another video clip, in the Holy Ka’aba asking God’s forgiveness for his viewers and followers (only), and then it turned out that he was just putting the image of the Holy Ka’aba behind him. In another video he apologized to his viewers and fans for making an appearance in cheap commercials.

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