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Salma El-Wardany meets young women in Egypt using their voices to amplify their faith – drawing inspiration from the long tradition of female Quran reciters in the country. Following in the footsteps of pioneering women like Sheikha Munira Abdou who was first heard on Egyptian Radio 100 years ago and the renowned singer Umm Kulthum, more Egyptian women are sharing their recitations of the Quran publicly. They’re stepping out of the shadows of a fatwa that denounced women’s voices as awrah (to be covered or not heard) which led to a ban of public recitation on the radio in the 1940s. The ban lasted years but the tradition is being restored thanks to a new generation, with women boldly reciting and chanting about the Prophet Mohammed on social media.

Salma visits Aya Mahmoud and Horeya Boreya, two young women who have both gained hundreds of thousands of followers thanks to their reciting online, and have the backing of Al Azhar Mosque, who announced a fatwa in 2021 that it was permissible. Salma visits the El Hour troupe, the first all-female chanting group to meet the founder Neama Fathy and hears about the challenges of overcoming conservative opinions. While the female voice is still a controversial topic – Salma meets Dr Yasmin Asmin, a feminist scholar who argues there isn’t basis in scripture to say women’s voices are awrah – women spoke and were heard in the Quran and were central to sharing and teaching the Quran in the time of the Prophet onwards.

Presenter: Salma El-Wardany
Producer: Miriam Williamson
Executive Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Chloe Walker
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno