Recitation Engineering in Sheikh Mustafa Ismail’s Style
This influence has been so much that years after the prominent qari’s death, his style is still liked and pursued by qaris and those who love the Quran.
In addition to being a Quran reciter, Mustafa Ismail had completed two Quran interpretation courses with a senior scholar of Al-Azhar Islamic Center. This knwodlge in Tafseer (interpretation) is quite noticeable in his recitations.
His recitations cannot be considered meaning-based but should be regarded as Tafseer-based. This renowned Egyptian qari interprets verses of the Quran with his recitations and amazes the listener.
An Egyptian researcher has proved that Mustafa Ismail has 52,000 hours of Quran recitation. He has recited some Surahs of the Holy Book numerous times. For instance, he recited Surah At-Tahrim 70 times, an interestingly, none of the recitations are similar while the overall spirit of the recitations is one.
Hence, Mustafa Ismail has a special engineering for recitation of every Surah. There are no repetitions in his recitations.
This is while many other Egyptian qaris have the same way of recitation and if you listen to 50 recitations from them, you can see they all have the same features.
The older Mustafa Ismail grew, the more skillful he got in recitations. One of his prayers was asking God to never take recitation from him. And it was granted as on the last day of his life, he recited Surah Al-Kahf and died after returning home.
When he was about 20, Mustafa Ismail was reciting in a Quranic session. A great musician of time named Darwish Hariri asked him where he had learned the rhythms and he answered, “I have tried to memorize all the rhythms I have heard and through them develop my own style.”
Highlighting Mustafa Ismail’s genius, Hariri says no musician could train someone like this.
When he is praised like this at 20, one can imagine what a great reciter he had become in his latter years. One wonders how he managed to recite the Quran for nearly two hours during a Quranic session at Abul Ala Mosque at the age of 70. This recitation is a masterpiece in the Muslim world’s history of Quran recitation.
