Ahmad Nuaina

Ahmad Ahmad Nuaina (born 15 March 1954) is an Egyptian Qur'an reciter and paediatrician, known for his command of tajwid and the canonical readings and for a style shaped by Mustafa Ismail. He has been an official reciter of Egyptian Radio and Television since 1979, has recited at state ceremonies under several presidents, and in October 2025 was appointed Chief of Egyptian Quran Recitations. ^{1 2}

He was born at Metoubes in Kafr El Sheikh; his father was a prominent cotton merchant there and chairman of the Qabbani Association of Kafr El Sheikh. He entered the kuttab at four and had memorised the Qur'an before eight, learned tajwid from Ahmed el-Shawa, and went to school in Metoubes and then Rosetta. ¹

He studied medicine at Alexandria University, specialised in paediatrics and took master's and doctoral degrees, then worked at the university hospital and as vice-director of its children's hospital and of a therapeutic institution in Alexandria — hence the epithet 'the physician reciter'. While a student he read the ten readings with Muhammad Farid al-Nu'mani and his wife Umm al-Saad, attending for two hours after the dawn prayer before going to the university. ¹

He also learned by listening to the great radio reciters — Muhammad Rifat, Abdul Basit Abdus Samad, Abul Ainain Shuaisha, Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary and Muhammad Siddiq al-Minshawi — and he describes Mustafa Ismail, whom he came to know in Alexandria, as his principal teacher and greatest influence. ¹

The article says he recited as a child before Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. As a student his voice caught the attention of Ahmad al-Sayyid Darwish, head of the Muslim Youth Association in Alexandria, and for about ten years he was a regular reciter at al-Samak Mosque. In 1979 he became an official reciter of Egyptian Radio and Television, and he recorded the complete Qur'an in murattal style for Egyptian Radio and Abu Dhabi Radio. ¹

His link with state ceremonies began under Anwar Sadat, who compared his recitation to Mustafa Ismail's, invited him to presidential functions and made him his personal physician and reciter; he became known as the 'presidential reciter' and went on reciting at state occasions under Hosni Mubarak and afterwards. ¹

In October 2025 the Minister of Awqaf, Osama al-Azhari, appointed him Chief of Egyptian Quran Recitations, at the head of the authority that oversees some 12,000 kuttabs across Egypt. ¹

He was invited to Kuwait in 1983 and recited before its emir, visited Qatar in 1984, and in 1986 accepted an invitation from the Sultan of Brunei before appearing as a guest of honour in Malaysia. The article reports that he took first place at an international Qur'an competition in New Delhi in 1985 and first-place honours at international competitions in Malaysia (1995), Brunei and Indonesia. ¹

In 1997 King Hassan II of Morocco heard him on a dawn broadcast and invited him for Ramadan, when he recited at the kingdom's royal Ramadan gatherings. In June 2026 he visited the United States to recite, visit memorisation centres and examine students in tajwid, and after a controversy he said the visit had nothing to do with the opening of the 2026 World Cup. ¹

Wikidata listed articles on him in seven Wikipedia editions on 6 November 2026, among them Arabic, English, Persian, Bengali, Kurdish and Malay. ²

• English Wikipedia article, revision of 6 November 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q20386256. ²