Mustafa Ismail

Mustafa Muhammad Mursi Ismail (17 June 1905 – 26 December 1978) was an Egyptian Qur'an reciter, grouped with Abdul Basit Abd us-Samad, Muhammad Siddiq Al-Minshawi and Mahmoud Khalil Al-Hussary among the four prominent Egyptian reciters of the twentieth century. His recitations were broadcast on Egyptian radio and performed at religious ceremonies and public events across Egypt and abroad; he was chosen by King Farouk as reciter of the royal palace and received recognition under President Gamal Abdel Nasser.¹²

He was born on 17 June 1905 in Mit Gazal, a village near Tanta in Gharbia, and was raised by his grandfather. He memorised the entire Qur'an during childhood — the Arabic article says before the age of twelve, in the village kuttab — and then joined the Ahmadi Institute in Tanta to study the recitation modes and the rules of tajwid. He studied first under Abdul Rahman Abu al-Aynayn and Abdullah Shahata, and completed the recitation and its revision thirty times under Idris Fakhir while still in his teens.¹²

In 1925 he recited at the mourning ceremony of Husayn al-Qasabi, a wealthy resident of Tanta — the Arabic article dates the breakthrough to a Ramadan night in 1917, when he was sixteen and his teacher Idris Fakhir presented him to the household — and two years later he recited at a ceremony associated with the nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul in Damietta. His recitation began to attract attention well beyond his local community.¹²

Ismail was reportedly invited to substitute for an ill reciter on Egyptian radio, and his recitation attracted the attention of King Farouk, who requested that he recite during Ramadan at the palace and appointed him reciter of the royal palace — the Arabic article stresses that this came before he had been formally accredited by the radio, and that he was the first reciter recorded by Egyptian Radio without examination. In 1947 he became a reciter associated with Al-Azhar Mosque, and he continued to perform at religious occasions, including Mawlid celebrations, and at official events.¹²

His son Wahid Mustafa recalled that the young Ismail was once scheduled to recite for ten minutes alongside Shaykh Muhammad Rifat, but that Rifat enjoyed the recitation so much that Ismail recited for an hour and a half. The Arabic article likewise records that Rifat heard him, admired his voice and predicted a bright future for him.¹²

Ismail visited twenty-five Arab and Islamic countries and spent the nights of Ramadan reciting in them, and also travelled to Ceylon, Turkey, Malaysia and Tanzania, and to Germany and the United States. In Turkey in 1969 his performances at Istanbul's Süleymaniye Mosque drew large crowds, and President Cevdet Sunay presented him with a gold-lettered Qur'an. He visited Jerusalem in 1960 and recited at Al-Aqsa Mosque on one of the nights of the Isra and Mi'raj, and returned in 1977 in President Anwar Sadat's delegation, reciting at Al-Aqsa again.¹²

Ismail was known for his command of the Arabic maqamat, the melodic frameworks of traditional Arabic vocal performance: he recited in more than nineteen maqams with their branches, combining variation in pitch, ornamentation, phrasing and vocal intensity with the rules of tajwid, and was famous for his long breath in measured recitation. The composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab called him "the only reciter who surprised listeners with unexpected maqam routes", and the reciter Ahmad Nuaina described him as "several methods and sheikhs in one". He recorded the whole Qur'an in tartil and left more than 1,300 recitations that are still broadcast on Qur'an radio stations.¹²

In 1965 he received a distinction from President Nasser — the Arabic article specifies the Order of Merit — together with, the English article reports, the singers Umm Kulthum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab on the same occasion. He also received the Lebanese Order of the Cedar at the rank of Commander (the Arabic article dates the Lebanese honour to 1958), an Order of Arts in 1965, a Syrian Order of Merit, high honours from Malaysia and Tanzania, and, posthumously in 1985, an Order of Excellence from President Mubarak.¹²

On 22 December 1978 he travelled to Damietta to recite at the opening of a mosque in President Sadat's presence — his last recitation. Returning to his villa in Alexandria's Rushdi district, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, fell into a coma, and died at the university hospital in Alexandria on the morning of Tuesday 26 December 1978, aged seventy-three. A state funeral was held on 28 December, and by his will, and on President Sadat's order, he was buried at his house in Mit Gazal.¹²

The museum records his faith as unknown. The English article's embedded infobox gives his sect as Sunni and the Arabic article's reciter infobox gives his sect as Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama'a, but no article text names a school for him, no madhhab is given anywhere, and Wikidata gives only Islam. Two infoboxes and a structured value are one structured tradition, not two independent attestations.¹²³

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.