The Ghanaian Minaret

Khartoum – Sudan was on Friday thrown into a state of mourning following the death of its renowned Quran reciter, Sheikh Nurayn Mohammad Siddiq.

The scholar and three students that included Ali Yaqoub, Abdullah Awad Al-Karim and Muhannad Al-Kinani were reported dead in a car accident on Friday evening while Sayed bin Omar, another student was said to be in critical condition.

The accident was said to have occurred 18 km from Omdurman when the sheikh was returning from a Dawah trip at Wadi Halfa in the Northern State of Sudan.

Sheikh Nurayn is one of the most accomplished reciters of the Quran as he was distinctively known for his way of reciting in the Al Duri qira’at.

Al-Duri, a name for Abu ‘Amr Hafs Ibn ‘Umar Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Baghdadi (150-246AH), was a significant figure in the transmission of the Qira’at which denotes the methods of reciting the Qur’an.

 Of the seven canonical reciters, al-Duri was a transmitter for two entirely separate methods: that of Abu ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ala’ and that of Al-Kisa’i.

The late Scholar began his journey to memorising the Quran in the mid-nineties at the hands of scholars in the Bara region of North Kordofan state.

Sudanese Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Nasreddin Mufreh took to social media to announce the death in a post and said he was “distressed by the departure of Sheikh Noreen following a traffic accident”.

Since then, tributes had been pouring in from Muslims around the globe with Dr Omar Suleiman, an Islamic scholar from the US saying in a Tweet:

“The world has lost one of the most beautiful Quran reciters of our time in a car accident today. Shaykh Nurayn Muhammad Siddeeq of Sudan (rahimahullah). May Allah have mercy on him and grant him Shahada. Ameen”,

The deceased persons have since been buried in Khartoum on Saturday morning.