Limited preparation time did not stop UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta students from giving their best effort. Amid their obligations under the Kuliah Kerja Nyata (KKN, Community Service Program) and the distance separating team members, two teams from UIN Sunan Kalijaga still managed to deliver two gold medals on the final day of Pekan Olahraga, Seni, dan Ilmiah (PORSI) JAWARA II 2026, Saturday (9/12/2026).

The two gold medals were won in the Musabaqah Syarhil Qur'an (MSQ, Qur'anic Elucidation) and Musabaqah Fahmil Qur'an (MFQ, Qur'anic Comprehension) branches. For both teams, the competition did not take place under fully ideal conditions. Time had to be split with their KKN duties, while training and preparation still had to continue.

In the MSQ category, the gold medal was won by Muhammad Satrio Mufid Mafendi from the Islamic Guidance and Counseling Study Program, Faculty of Da'wah and Communication, together with Muhammad Ilham Aulia from the Da'wah Management Study Program, Faculty of Da'wah and Communication, and Lukman Hakim from the Islamic Religious Education Study Program, Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training.

The three had, in fact, never performed together as a team before this. They were brought together through a selection process run by the student affairs team. In their performance, Mufid served as the orator (pensyarah), Ilham as the Qur'an reciter (tilawah), and Lukman as the lead reciter (qari).

Their preparation took place while each member was in a different location for KKN. Mufid was stationed in Kalimantan, while Ilham and Lukman were in Malang and Yogyakarta, respectively. This made in-person practice difficult.

“We practiced virtually, since we were all doing KKN at the same time but in different places,” Mufid said.

The challenges of time and distance did not end at the preparation stage. In the competition arena, the MSQ team had to compete against 15 teams in the preliminary round. Only six teams advanced to the final. UIN Sunan Kalijaga's team placed fifth.

That result did not give the three of them any sense of security. Still, they used their preliminary-round standing as material for evaluation, working to improve their performance before the final.

Ilham said the team made a number of adjustments, including to their power and body language, to strengthen their performance in the final round.

“Placing fifth didn't discourage us. We worked to perform even better in the final,” Ilham said.

MSQ preparation did not stop at rehearsing the performance itself. Each team also had to compose a script based on a chosen theme, which had to include two supporting facts, two Qur'anic verses, and two interpretations.

In the preliminary round, UIN Sunan Kalijaga's team took on the theme of mental revolution and character. In the final round, they chose the theme of social media ethics and artificial intelligence (AI).

That message was then delivered through a more creative approach, with improvisation and elements of entertainment woven in to build an especially compelling performance.

For Lukman, performing in MSQ offered a different experience compared to competing in MTQ (Qur'an Recitation), which he was more accustomed to. In the category he usually competes in, he performs mostly seated, allowing for longer, more controlled breathing. In MSQ, however, he had to perform standing and maintain continuity alongside his two teammates.

That difference became part of their process of adaptation. After going through the preliminary round and addressing several weaknesses, the three of them were finally able to deliver their best performance in the final.

Notably, a medal was not something they set as their goal from the start. After nearly failing to advance past the preliminary round, their focus shifted mostly toward evaluation and delivering their best possible performance.

“Honestly, we didn't have much confidence that we'd win gold, we weren't even thinking much about a medal at all. We just tried to evaluate our performance from the preliminaries and do our best in the final,” Mufid said.

The gold medal, then, was the result of that process. For Mufid, this first experience performing as a team taught an important lesson about how to bring together each member's character, ego, and spirit toward a shared goal.

A similarly hard-fought story came from the MFQ team. Three UIN Sunan Kalijaga students, Fika Suni Salsabila from the Islamic Communication and Broadcasting Study Program, Faculty of Da'wah and Communication, along with Syauqi Sirojuddin and A. Royhan Hibatulloh from the Qur'anic and Tafsir Studies Program, Faculty of Ushuluddin and Islamic Thought, managed to secure the top spot.

Preparation for MFQ also took place alongside KKN. Time had to be divided between duties at their KKN placement and training for the competition. Once their KKN activities ended, preparation resumed in earnest ahead of the match.

Syauqi said their preparation was intensive, with training sessions running late into the night, cutting significantly into their rest time.

“For days, we prepared this until late at night, we even lost sleep over it,” Syauqi said.

For Fika, the competitiveness of the preliminary round made it hard to predict their chances of winning a medal. Even with genuinely thorough preparation, the final outcome still had to be decided through their performance in the arena.

“We're so happy, honestly we didn't expect it. Even though we put in an enormous amount of effort, we felt hopeless about winning a medal at one point because the preliminary round was so tight. But things fell into place for us, and we ended up winning gold,” Fika said.

These two gold medals on the final day of PORSI JAWARA II 2026 are the result of a process that did not always unfold under ideal conditions. For UIN Sunan Kalijaga students, limited time actually pushed them to be even more deliberate in balancing their KKN duties, training, and competition preparation. (humassk)