Qur’anic Botanic Garden concludes Ramadan activities
Qatar Foundation’s Qur’anic Botanic Garden (QBG), the first garden in the world to exhibit all plant species mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, Hadith and Sunnah, hosted a wide range of virtual community-oriented activities during the holy month of Ramadan.
One of the highlights was QBG’s daily Ramadan competition, where keen botanists and gardeners of all ages could win prizes by answering questions on QBG’s social media pages about verses in the Hadith related to environmental and botanical terminology.
This month, QBG also announced the winners of its Fun and Learn, Environment Research and Food Security competitions.
For this year’s Earth Day, marked on April 22 each year, which took place during the holy month, QBG held a series of events throughout the month, including a webinar on local plant conservation and food security initiatives, and an online lecture organised with the Ministry of Culture and Sports and Al Arabi Sports Club, presented by QBG assistant researcher, Ahmed El-Gharib, on the plants of the Holy Qur’an.
The lecture attracted around 100 attendees and featured a prize competition.
In addition, as part of QBG’s Ramadan activities line-up was a programme of seminars conducted via webinar underscoring the significance of food self-sufficiency and sustainability, as well as Qatari plant conservation initiatives to preserve local flora.
The webinars brought together local panellists and experts from around Qatar, with participants able to actively engage with through questions during the live stream.
April also saw three high school students, who, provided with guidance and support by QBG, presented environmental projects at the College of Islamic Studies at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Ramadan Summit: Design Post-Covid Humanity: Taarfuf, Taawun, Tarahum.
Ahmed Abdelkader of the Doha Secondary School, presented his project on the impact of herbariums and the use of a smartphone app to document taxonomic history and raising people’s awareness about flora in Qatar. The project topic of Sara al-Nama, from Al Bayan Secondary School for Girls, involved the use of the rootstock of Sidra in grafting apple trees in Qatar, while Ahmad Makableh from Ahmed Bin Hanbal Independent Secondary School for Boys, focused on an electronic system for the remote monitoring of water quality in Qatari fish farms.
Fatima Khulaifi, director, QBG, said, “Ramadan is a time for reflection, compassion and charity. Thanks to innovative technologies and the enthusiasm and expertise of our team and partners, we were able to host a range of informative and thought-provoking seminars and online activities.
“We at QBG are delighted to host activities for the community and extend a heart-felt thank you to everyone for joining us in celebrating this blessed month.”