From Umm Muhammad to Sheikha Karima .. Voices of Women in the History of Quran Recitation

Shaima Abdullah

“The Qur’an was revealed in Mecca, it was written in Iraq, and it was read in Egypt.” Thus, the tongues circulated the saying about the miracle of sound that God granted to the readers of his book in Egypt.

In his book "Melodies of Heaven," the journalist writer Mahmoud Al-Saadani chronicled many stories that were told for the first time about the Egyptian reciters, and how the world was affected by them. Al-Saadani compared the Sheikhs of the 1940s and 1950s and the first generations of the Egyptian radio, and the sheikhs of the 1970s and the subsequent generations of television.

Several names appeared among the pages of the book, for imams of sheikhs, and in a small corner of the book, the impact of women was prominent in the first era for readers of the Qur’an on the radio, before they were banned by an official fatwa, and reciting the Holy Qur’an remains restricted to men.

From Umm Muhammed to Sheikha Karima
The seventh chapter of “Heaven's Tunes” tells the stories of three women who were among the most famous reciters of the Noble Qur’an, from the 1940s until the mid-1970s, when the page of female readers from the history of Egyptian readers entailed the departure of Sheikha Nabawiya al-Nahhas in 1973.

Sheikha Nabawiya was the last Egyptian woman to recite the Noble Qur’an at public events and official ceremonies and for funerals and weddings, and listening to it was restricted to women, in the women's section in Al-Hussein Mosque.

Before the three women, Al-Saadani says in his book that the written history of the Qur’an readers in Egypt is known only to Sheikha Umm Muhammad, who appeared during the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha, and was admired by top leaders and princes at that time, so that Muhammad Ali ordered her travel to Istanbul To revive the nights of Ramadan in the campus of the Ottoman Sultana.

Umm Muhammad won many prizes, gifts, and banners, and she died before the defeat and illness of Muhammad Ali, and was buried in the cemetery that the Governor of Egypt built it for her, and her funeral was held in a solemn ceremony.

Munira Abdu
also shines the star of Mrs. Munira Abdu as one of the most prominent reciters of the Noble Qur’an. In 1920, the star of the young girl, who was only 16 years old, shone her voice and a veneer mixed with tenderness.

It was not long before the young girl became a rival to the elders of sheikhs, and she became a match for Sheikh Ahmed Nada and Sheikh Mohammed Rifaat, and her reputation spread in the Arab countries, and Radio London and Paris broadcast to her clips from her recitation of the Quran.

When establishing the official radio station in Cairo, Munira Abdo was one of the first to recite the Qur’an on the radio, and she was paid a salary of seven and a half pounds, and when the sheikh's wages increased, she raised to 15 pounds, her wages also increased to reach ten full pounds, until a fatwa was issued in 1939 that The woman’s recitation of the Qur’an angered the angels, so Mounira Abdo was removed from the radio, and London and Paris stations stopped broadcasting their videos, so that the elders of the sheikhs would not be angry, despite the thousands of messages that were received to the radio demanding the return of Mounira who had retreated in her house listening to her old recordings and ruminating memories.

The dignity of justice
was the beginning of the appearance of justice in conjunction with the beginnings of Munira al-Mahdiyya, and for nearly 15 years, the two dominated the monarchy individually, one on the square of rapture, and the other on the square of recitation and Tawasheh, until the sheik became ill and retired from the nights, and her voice and luster decreased, and she went for Hajj and spent three years there, and when She had changed everything, until the throne of Mahdia was shaken by the emergence of Umm Kulthum, and when the Egyptian radio was established, she had no opportunity to participate in it, she was weakened, and her voice no longer bore the same old power.

Umm Al-Saad .. The last generation of female readers
in a special research prepared by the late researcher Hossam Tammam in 2002, on the authority of Sheikha Umm Al-Saad, who was unable to reach the radio microphone because of the fatwa of women's voices, but she took another approach, and she kept reviving her for religious occasions, then she stopped On that as well, she continued until the end of her life, memorizing the Qur’an in Egypt and the Arab world, and was distinguished by memorizing the Qur’an with ten readings, and for half a century she granted her leave in the ten readings of women and men, old and young, until she was over eighty years old.

Popular recipes that eliminated the vision of Umm Al-Saad in her early childhood, as had been the case with many children at that time, and as usual the people of the countryside, the blind of children give gifts to the Qur'an, so the child sent Umm Al-Saad to the book, so I saved it and completed it at the age of 15, then I went To Sheikha Nafisa bint Abu Al-Ela, I know the people of her time to learn the ten recitations, and Nafisa did not memorize girls, because she knows their preoccupation with marriage and children, stipulated that the young girl should not marry, and Umm Al-Saad agreed to the condition.

Umm Al-Saad completed the ten recitations, and she became one of the memorizers of the Holy Qur’an frequently, separated by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, 27 narrators, up to the faithful spirit of Gabriel.

Umm Al-Saad did not keep her pledge that she made to her teacher, so she married one of the sheikhs who took his Qur’an holidays on her hand. Umm Al-Saad traveled to many Arab countries, listening and authorizing the major readers, and she stayed in Saudi Arabia for two years, to learn by her many women and men coming to her From all sides.