Mahmoud Khalil al-Hussary

Mahmoud Khalil al-Hussary (17 September 1917 – 24 November 1980) was an Egyptian Qur'an reciter and scholar of the recitations, born at Shubra al-Namla, a village near Tanta in the Gharbia Governorate. He won Egyptian Radio's recitation competition in 1944, served for decades as reciter of the al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo, and became the first reciter to record the complete Qur'an in the murattal style, going on to record the Warsh, Qalun and Duri recitations as well. He taught at al-Azhar, held the title Shaykh al-Maqari' — head of Egypt's reciters — wrote twelve books on Qur'anic sciences, and with al-Minshawi, Abdul Basit and Mustafa Ismail forms the quartet of modern Egypt's great reciters.¹²

He was born on 1 Dhu al-Hijjah 1335 AH, 17 September 1917, at Shubra al-Namla, to which his father al-Sayyid Khalil had moved from the Faiyum before his birth; his mother was Farah, called Farha in the village. He entered the Qur'an school at the age of four and completed his memorisation of the Qur'an by the age of eight on the Arabic article's account — the English article gives nine, or eleven. He used to walk daily from his village to the Ahmadi Mosque in Tanta to continue his memorisation, joined the religious institute there at twelve, and then studied the ten qira'at at al-Azhar, taking his certificates in the science of the recitations before devoting himself to the Qur'anic sciences.²¹

In 1944 he entered Egypt Radio's Qur'an recitation competition, which drew some two hundred candidates, among them veterans such as Muhammad Rifat, Ali Mahmud and Abd al-Fattah al-Sha'sha'i, and he placed first; he made his first broadcast on 16 February 1944. He was appointed reciter of the Ahmadi Mosque in Tanta — the English article dates the appointment to 1945 and notes a conflicting report of a straight decade of service there, while the Arabic article dates it to 1950 — and in 1948 he was made mu'adhin, then muqri', of the Sidi Hamza Mosque, and supervised the recitation centres of Gharbia province. In 1955 he was appointed reciter of the al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo and served there, on the English article's account, for twenty-nine years, until his death.¹²

He studied and taught at al-Azhar University. In 1960 he headed the department at the Islamic Research Academy charged with correcting the Qur'an codices in al-Azhar's libraries, and he was appointed to the academy's board of Islamic research on hadith and the Qur'an. Al-Azhar conferred on him the title Shaykh al-Maqari' in 1957; the Arabic article styles him the former Shaykh of all the Egyptian recitation schools (Shaykh 'Umum al-Maqari' al-Misriyya).¹²

He was the first reciter to record and broadcast the complete Qur'an in the murattal (tarteel) style: the Hafs recitation in 1961, Warsh in 1964, and Qalun and al-Duri in 1968, the same year as his al-Mushaf al-Mu'allim ("the Teaching Qur'an"), a tarteel recording designed for instruction; he also recorded in the mujawwad style. He wrote twelve books on the Qur'anic sciences, aiming — the English article says — to end corruption of both the text and the recitation styles.¹

In 1967 President Gamal Abd al-Nasir awarded him Egypt's Medal of Honour for Arts and Sciences, first grade, and in the same year he was elected president of the Islamic World League of Qur'an Reciters. In 1960 he travelled to Pakistan and India — the first Egyptian reciter to do so — to recite at a conference attended by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Nasser, and he accompanied the rector of al-Azhar on his travels. He took part in the World of Islam Festival in London in 1976 and recited before the United States Congress and at the United Nations in 1977.¹

No source names a school for him. The English infobox gives his denomination as Sunni and the Arabic and Urdu infoboxes give his creed as Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama'a, with the madhhab fields left blank, and Wikidata carries no religion value; the museum records his affiliation as unknown, the infoboxes being a single structured tradition, with the detail preserved in his data record.¹²

He died on Monday evening, after the night prayer, on 16 Muharram 1401 AH, 24 November 1980, at Cairo on the English infobox's and the French article's account, closing a journey with the Qur'an of nearly fifty-five years.²¹

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