From Umm Muhammad to Sheikha Karima.. Women’s voices in the history of Quran recitation

“The Qur’an was revealed in Mecca, written in Iraq, and recited in Egypt.” This is how the tongues circulated that saying about the vocal miraculousness that God granted to the readers of his book in Egypt.

In his book, “The Tunes of Heaven,” journalist Mahmoud Al-Saadani chronicled many stories that were told for the first time about famous Egyptian recitationists, and how the world affected them. Al-Saadani compared between the sheikhs of the forties and fifties and the first generations on Egyptian radio, and between the sheikhs of the seventies and the generations that followed on television.

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

From Umm Muhammad to Sheikha Karima,

the seventh chapter of the book “Alones of Heaven” tells the stories of three women who were among the most famous readers of the Noble Qur’an, from the forties to the mid-seventies, when the page of female readers of the history of Egyptian reciters came to an end with the departure of Sheikha Nabawiya al-Nahhas in 1973.

Sheikha Nabawia was the last Egyptian woman to recite the Holy Qur’an on public occasions, official celebrations, funerals, and weddings. Listening to her was restricted to women, in the women’s section of Al-Hussein Mosque.

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

Umm Muhammad won many awards, gifts and medals, and she died before Muhammad Ali’s defeat and illness, and was buried in the cemetery of the Wali of Egypt, which was built specifically for her, and her funeral ceremony took place in a solemn ceremony.

Listening to female readers was limited to women (Getty Images)

Munira Abdo

also shone with the star of Mrs. Munira Abdo as one of the most prominent reciters of the Holy Qur’an. In 1920, the star of the young girl, who was no more than 16 years old, shone, carrying her voice and dignity mixed with tenderness.

It did not take long for the young girl to compete with the elders of the reciters, and she became an equal to Sheikh Ahmed Nada and Sheikh Muhammad Rifaat, and her reputation spread in the Arab countries, and she was broadcast by London and Paris radio excerpts from her recitation of the Qur’an.

When the official radio was established in Cairo, Munira Abdo was one of the first to recite the Qur’an on the radio, and she was paid a salary of up to seven and a half pounds. A woman’s recitation of the Qur’an angers the angels, so Munira Abdo was removed from the radio, and London and Paris stations stopped broadcasting her tapes, so as not to anger the senior sheikhs, despite the thousands of messages received on the radio calling for the return of Munira, who spent her seclusion in her home listening to her old recordings and regurgitating memories.

Karima Al-Adliya

was the beginning of the emergence of Al-Adliah associated with the beginnings of Munira Al-Mahdiya, and for nearly 15 years, the dominance of the two remained alone, one on the arena of rapture, and the other on the arena of recitation and recitation, until the Sheikha fell ill and retired from the nights, and her voice and luster faded, and she went for the pilgrimage and spent there three years, and when She returned, everything had changed, even the throne of Mahdia was shaken by the appearance of Umm Kulthum, and when the Egyptian radio was established, she did not have the opportunity to participate in it, as she was weakened, and her voice no longer carried the same old strength.

Umm Al-Saad.. the last generation of female readers

in a special research prepared by the late researcher Hossam Tammam in 2002, about Sheikha Umm Al-Saad, who could not reach the radio microphone because of the fatwa of the voice of women, but she took another approach, and maintained her revival of religious occasions, then stopped About that also, and she continued until the end of her life to memorize the Qur’an in Egypt and the Arab world, and was distinguished by memorizing the Qur’an with the ten readings, and for half a century she gave her licenses in the ten readings to women and men, old and young, until she was over eighty years old.

Folk recipes that eliminated Umm Al-Saad’s vision in her early childhood, as was the case with many children at that time, and as is the custom of rural people, blind children are given the Qur’an. Sheikha Nafisa bint Abu Al-Ala, the most knowledgeable of the people of her time to learn the ten readings, and Nafisa did not memorize girls, because she knew their preoccupation with marriage and children, she stipulated that the young girl not get married, and Umm Al-Saad agreed to the condition.

Umm Al-Saad completed the ten readings, and she became one of the memorizers of the Noble Qur’an with mutawatir, and she is separated from the Prophet Muhammad, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, by 27 narrators, down to the faithful spirit Gabriel.

Umm Al-Saad authorized the recitation of the Qur’an for senior reciters (Getty)

Umm Al-Saad did not keep the promise she made to her teacher, so she married one of the sheikhs who took his Qur’anic licenses at her hand. From all sides.