Maria Ulfah ( ar, ماريا أولفا; born 21 December 1955) is an Indonesian

qāriʾ A Qari (, ar, قَارِئ, plural ''qāriʾūn'', ''qurrāʾ'' or ''qaraʾah'') is a person who recites the Quran with the proper rules of recitation (''tajwid''). Although it is encouraged, a qāriʾ does not necessarily have to memorize t ...

ah (reciter of the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...

) and manager of the Central Institute for the Development of Quranic Recitation. She is the winner of two Indonesian national Qur'an recitation contests and is internationally recognized as one of the world's master reciters and teachers of recitation.Kathryn M. Coughlin
Muslim Cultures Today: A Reference Guide
pg. 87. Santa Barbara:

Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 2006. She is also a lecturer at the Institute for the Study of Qur'an and at the National Islamic University in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, as well as the first woman to win an international Qur'an recitation award in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

in 1980. She's considered an internationally significant figure in the field, and has been referred to as

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

's premier female reciter of the Qur'an.

Personal life

Ulfah was born in

Lamongan Regency Lamongan Regency is a regency ''(kabupaten)'' of East Java, Indonesia. It has a total land area of approximately or + 3.78% of the area of East Java Province. With a length of along the coastline, the sea area of Lamongan Regency is about , if ...

East Java East Java ( id, Jawa Timur) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost hemisphere of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean bord ...

, on December 21, 1955, to Haji Mudhoffar and Hajjah Ruminah. She was the ninth child of twelve. In 1981, she married Mukhtar Ikhsan, a pulmonologist and respiratory physician and lecturer at the medical school of the

University of Indonesia The University of Indonesia ( id, Universitas Indonesia, abbreviated as UI) is a public university in Depok, West Java and Salemba, Jakarta, Indonesia. It is one of the oldest tertiary-level educational institutions in Indonesia (known as the Dut ...

. She has three children: Ahmad Nabries, Mohammad Labib, and Rifky Mubarak.

Career

Ulfah was introduced to Qur'an recitation by her father, Haji Mudhoffar, who taught her that she was equal to any man or woman. He staged Qur'an reciting competitions in their hometown to give his daughter experience. She began training at age 6, with instruction from her older sister. Her interest in the art grew as she attended an Islamic boarding school that encouraged her to pursue recitation. Since the 1980s, Ulfah has been an internationally popular and respected figure in Qur'anic recitation. Ulfah is a scholar of the history of Qur'anic recitation in the

Indonesian archipelago The islands of Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Indonesia) or Nusantara, may refer either to the islands comprising the country of Indonesia or to the geographical groups which include its islands. History ...

, as well as a lecturer at the Institute for Qur'anic Studies in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

. Ulfah's recitation was featured on the companion CD to ''Approaching the Qur'an'' by

Michael Sells Michael Anthony Sells (born May 8, 1949) is John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature in the Divinity School and in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. Michael Sells studies and teaches in the ...

, and she has toured Malaysia, Egypt, Australia, the United States,Anna M. Gade
Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion, and the Recited Qurʼān in Indonesia
pg. 279.

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

University of Hawaii Press A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

, 2004. Canada, and several European countries. During her 1999 tour in the United States for which Ulfah was accompanied by Anne Rasmussen, her trip was hosted by the

Middle East Studies Association of North America Middle East Studies Association (often referred to as MESA) is a learned society, and according to its website, "a non-profit association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encoura ...

Jane Dammen McAuliffe Jane Dammen McAuliffe (born 1944) is an American educator, scholar of Islam and the inaugural director of national and international outreach at the Library of Congress. She is a president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College and former dean of Georgeto ...

Disparity and Context: Teaching Quranic Studies in North America
pg. 106. Taken from ''Teaching Islam''. Ed. Brannon M. Wheeler. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

External links

Personal website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulfah, Maria 1955 births Indonesian Muslims Indonesian Quran reciters Javanese people Living people People from Lamongan Regency Women scholars of Islam Indonesian women Indonesian people of Egyptian descent

Personal life

Career

See also

External links

References