In the month of Ramadan in which the Qur’an was revealed, God decreed that the life of the last great reciter of the Egyptian School of Recitation, Sheikh Muhammad Mahmoud al-Tablawi, whose birth anniversary falls today, on the fourteenth of November 1934, will end the life of the hearers for seven decades.

Al-Tablawi died last Ramadan (May 2020) after he gathered his family members for breakfast on the fifth day of Ramadan, as he used to every year, and after he supervised the distribution of aid to the poor in his area through a charity run by his daughter, while his tongue kept reciting the Qur’an. The usual one in his weekly end, tolerating the pain of old age.

A week after he gathered his children, and on the fifth of May, the awakening of death noticed him, as narrated by close to the sheikh, so he seemed relieved of old age diseases, and since he woke up, he kept laughing and caressing his family members.

At the iftar table, his family members started to eat one by one, and after everyone finished breakfast, and the darkening continued, the sheikh turned to his ten-year-old son Omar, called him to him, embraced him for a long time and kissed him, then the last commandment recommended that he should complete memorizing the Qur’an, because it is a way. Success and survival.

A long journey of


eighty-six years carried by the late Reciters Syndicate over his back, the first of which did not promise him that he would become important in the state of the Qur’an, as he failed nine times in the recitation exam on the radio, and at the tenth he called with a laugh, “O blessing the parents’ supplication, O Lord, stop me the evil of this committee Then, the members of the examination committee heard him through the open amplifier inadvertently, and they laughed and brought him to the exam to be surprised by his success this time.

The owner of the unique style that distinguished him from others for decades was failing the exams due to his lack of knowledge of the vocal and musical maqamas, but he remained insistent on fulfilling the dream of his father, Mahmoud al-Tablawi, who saw in a dream someone who preached to him a lonely child would have an interest in the Qur’an.

A journey that began with a dream of a simple man in the Mit Uqba area in Cairo, Mahmoud al-Tablawi, that he would have a child who memorized the Qur’an, and in late 1934 Muhammad was born, when he reached the age of four, his father enrolled him in the region’s book, and there Sheikh Ghoneim Sheikh al-Kitab noticed the beauty of the child's voice before he was fulfilled He memorized the book of God at the age of ten, so that the journey would pass by zigzags that culminated in reading the Qur’an in the middle of the Kaaba, as no reader had done before.

This incident, which the late Sheikh did not stop, bragged about his interlocutors, saying, "I smelled the wind of Paradise at that time while I was reading the Qur’an in the middle of the Kaaba during Ramadan."

Occurred this incident the seventies when Saudi Arabia's late Khalid bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud was sitting with the king Vastahbh with him to wash the Kaaba, then asked him to read the verse, "God commands that trusts to their owners and if you judge between people to judge with justice that God admonishes you do Indeed, God was hearing, seeing "to the end of the verses.

He did not imagine the possibility of this dream being realized by that young reader, who started his activity as a traveling reader in public events in the Giza governorate and its environs, and was famous for the sweetness of his voice, uniqueness of his style, and the length of himself, so large families were racing to book it on their occasions.

Al-Tablawi's journey began with recitation on special occasions at the age of twelve, in exchange for ten piasters for a night (the pound consists of 100 piasters, and the penny was valuable for her time), then he became invited to recite at funerals for senior employees, prominent personalities and well-known families next to famous radio readers before he reached Fifteen, and his wages rose to five pounds.

A defining moment


and the most prominent turning point occurred for the Sheikh by adopting the Egyptian Radio in 1970 AD, and there the Sheikh recorded the recited Qur’an, al-Majd and al-Mu’allim, and in his numerous conversations for newspapers, al-Tablawi asserted that "the radio has great merit over the people of the Qur’an."

The sheikh was famous before he joined the radio, which increased his fame and helped him to travel to various countries of the world.

The sheikh is told a story that has eyewitnesses, and it took place in the Italian capital, Rome, after the Qur’an was recited at the Islamic Council in Medina. Pope John Paul II invited him to meet him, so he agreed to one condition that the Pope meet him in front of the elevator in appreciation of the book that Tablawi carried, and the Pope agreed.

In America, one of his readings witnessed dozens of Islam on his hands after he finished reading, as he himself mentioned in one of his conversations.

It seemed that the seventies represented the era of al-Tablawi’s great departure, when he was chosen as a reader of the Al-Azhar Mosque, in the realization of an old hope that he kept enticing to the Sheikh and prayed to God to achieve it, and he later learned that the Minister of Endowments at that time requested the lists of the applicants and did not find al-Tablawi’s name among them.

Sheikh al-Naqib


later became al-Tablawi captain of twelve thousand reciters in Egypt, and despite the huge number, al-Tablawi expressed in several statements to him his regret for the "chaos" of reading, as satellite channels opened the door to unaccredited readers, just as the listeners no longer knew the date of his reading broadcast and were waiting for him. As before.

With this large number of readers, their captain and sheikh became sorry for the deterioration of their financial conditions and the lack of services provided to them, so the talents and beautiful voices departed from the field and the arena no longer witnesses the emergence of the voices of the former splendor. Rather, most of them became imitators of the previous ones, especially with the disappearance of the system of madrassas It produces Quran keepers who include rare voices.

In his advice to new reciters, Al-Tablawi advises near God Almighty and piety, generosity and zakat for the blessing of a good voice, and the certainty that the Qur’an has dignities without limitation.

Al-Tablawi and Sisi,


although the sheikh was supportive of the current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the beginning, he said in one of his statements before his departure that he reproached Sisi, and despite this the opponents of the coup continued to criticize his positive statements about the regime, considering it one of his failings, while others saw that the man He was obliged to make positive statements about the regime to avoid abuse against its union and its members, as happened with other unions.

Journalist Salim Azouz - one of the Sheikh’s followers and fans - says that it is not possible to say with certainty about the identity of the Sheikh’s critics of his political positions.

He told Al-Jazeera Net, "In the sentence, there is a satisfactory condition, which is to consider the position on the coup as if it was a determinant of the distinction between disbelief and faith."

With the exception of the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Tablawi's relationship with successive Egyptian presidents was characterized by rapprochement, and the late President Anwar Sadat was the most keen to bring the late Sheikh closer to him and listen to him, and revealed in one of his old conversations a wish that had not been fulfilled, namely, to visit Jerusalem with Sadat at the end of the seventies.

Al-Tablawi received a single invitation from President Mubarak to read at the funeral of his grandson in the Republican Palace for three days, and Al-Tablawi described him in one of his conversations as "he was heard of the Qur’an."

Despite this rapprochement with the authority, Tablawi expressed, in numerous statements, his pain at not appreciating the honor inside his country, despite his being honored outside it.

Despite the wealth and fame and fortune that the Qur’an has bestowed upon him, he affirms that he did not seek to gain from the Qur’an, saying, “Personally, I have never asked for a specific reward and leave the matter to the one who does the matter, and there are many occasions that I went to and did not get paid for it, and I was very comfortable.”

On the authority of its companion, who was always the closest to him, Al-Tablawi says, “The Qur’an gathers blessings, enlightens the hearts, preserves people, and gives them security and contentment, this true and indisputable wealth, and the Holy Qur’an made me happy, honored and cherished me with leaders, and gave me a decent life.”