The high award of the festival is the Golden Minbar statuette in the shape of a reel of cine-film with the ends transforming into the waves carrying the ark with a Minbar - a place from where the Imam preaches.
The Minbar at Darbar has been graced by notable scholars from Allama Mirza Yousaf Hussain, Hafiz Kifayat Hussain, Syed Azhar Hassan Zaidi, Hafiz Aashiq Hussain, to illustrious modern luminaries like Mohsin Naqvi, Allama Talib Johri, Agha Naseem Abbas and Allama Ghazanfar Abbas Tonsvi as the ace cynosure delivering three ashraas a year.
While minbars are akin to many pulpits in elevation and structure (in some churches used by readers of the Bible), they have a function and position more similar to that of a church lectern, being used instead by the minister of religion, the imam, typically for a wider range or readings and prayers.
In 1099, Ma'arat Misrin was conquered by the Crusaders who killed the town's defenders and destroyed the minbar ("pulpit") of its mosque.
When Garibaldi confronts and arrests him, the man gives him a recorded message from Jeffrey Sinclair, the Earth Alliance Ambassador to Minbar.