Antar Muslim

Early life and training

He was born on 17 November 1936 in al-Umma, a village in the Qutur district of Gharbia. At the age of one, an eye infection treated with folk remedies left him blind. His father sent him early to the village kuttab and then to Al-Azhar's primary school; he finished memorising the Quran at eight and, at about twelve, began reciting at ceremonies and funeral gatherings in the surrounding villages.

As a young man he studied the maqamat, the melodic modes of Arabic music, learned to play the oud and the violin, and sang religious poetry at saints' festivals before devoting himself entirely to recitation. He also studied the various Quranic readings with several teachers.

A controversial style

His way of reciting broke with Egyptian practice: he would repeat a verse, switching to a different reading each time—sometimes readings rarely heard in public—while moving from one maqam to another. The style won him a vast audience but drew criticism from established reciters, and in the mid-1980s Al-Azhar banned the circulation of his cassettes. His recordings nonetheless kept circulating in Egypt and were issued abroad, from Saudi Arabia and Iraq to Tunisia, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.

Death and legacy

He died on 6 September 2002, aged 65. His son Samir Muslim is also a reciter. In 2020 the journalist Tayea al-Dib published a biography of him, Al-Karawan al-Mamnu' ("The Forbidden Curlew"), which revived interest in a reciter who had long remained outside official circles. His published recitations follow the reading of Hafs 'an 'Asim.