A Minnesota teenager who became the first American to win a prestigious Quran recitation contest will travel to Somalia to meet the country\u2019s president.
\nAhmed Burhan Mohamed has become a bit of a celebrity since winning the Dubai International Holy Quran award last month. The 17-year-old, who beat out more than 100 other contestants from around the world, said he has been swarmed by admirers everywhere he goes.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s too much, I was not expecting this,\u201d Mohamed said. \u201cPeople give me so much respect. Now people that I don\u2019t know come up to me and they know my full name.\u201d
\nMohamed will travel to Somalia this week at the invitation of the East African country\u2019s president, who also wishes to meet and congratulate the teen, the Star Tribune reported. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the United States.
\nMohamed received a perfect score on his proper pronunciation, voice and style as he recited random verses of the Quran from memory. The Quran has more than 6,000 verses and spans more than 600 pages. He received a trophy and a cash prize worth about $68,000. His next goal: participate in an all-star Quran reciter competition in Qatar in 2020, which has a first place prize worth half a million dollars.
\nHis win stunned Minnesota\u2019s large Somali community, which is mostly concentrated in the Minneapolis area, where many doubted that someone raised in the state could compete with people raised in Muslim countries.
\nMohamet \u201cHambaase\u201d Ali is the former principal of the Islamic school at Abubakar As-Saddique mosque in Minneapolis where Ahmed trained. He said Somali parents often send their children to Africa so they\u2019re better accustomed to their culture and religion.
\nAli said many of those families are wary of their children growing up in the U.S. and losing their cultural identity. But Ali said he believes children can simultaneously maintain their American identity while meeting cultural and religious expectations.
\nThe proof, he said, is Mohamed.
\n\u201cChildren have more opportunity here in the United States than Africa,\u201d Ali said. \u201cThey belong here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Minnesota teenager who became the first American to win a prestigious Quran recitation contest will travel to Somalia to meet the country\u2019s president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c102-muslim-minorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n