Abla al-Kahlawi

Abla Muhammad Mursi Abd al-Latif al-Kahlawi was an Egyptian jurist and preacher, born on 15 December 1948 in the Zamalek quarter of Cairo, who died on 24 January 2021. ^{1 2 3} She was a professor of fiqh at the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Women at Al-Azhar University and its dean, and was known to her audience as 'Mama Abla'. ^{1 3}

She was the eldest daughter of the Egyptian religious singer Muhammad al-Kahlawi, and the sister of Muhammad al-Kahlawi, a professor of Islamic architecture, and of the singer Ahmad al-Kahlawi. ^{1 3} The Arabic article says she married young Muhammad Yasin Basyuni, an engineer and officer chosen for her by her father, who was killed in the October War, and that she raised and supported their three daughters alone. ¹

The Arabic article says she had hoped to become an ambassador but entered the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Al-Azhar University at her father's wish, graduating in 1969. ¹ She took a master's degree in comparative fiqh in 1974 with a thesis on 'Shura, the rule of Islamic government', and a doctorate in 1978. ^{1 3 2} She taught at the College of Education for Girls in Riyadh, headed the Sharia department of the College of Education in Mecca in 1979, and returned to Al-Azhar's women's college as professor of comparative fiqh and dean of the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies. ^{1 3}

From 1987 to 1989 she gave daily lessons for women at the Masjid al-Haram, attended by female pilgrims from around the world. ^{3 1} After returning to Cairo she continued her lessons for women at her father's mosque in al-Basatin, at Al-Azhar Mosque and at Bayt al-Hamd in al-Muqattam. ^{1 3} She presented television programmes on the Iqra', al-Risala and al-Nas channels, among them 'Fi Hubb al-Mustafa', broadcast in Ramadan 1428 AH on al-Risala and kept in the Assabile archive as In the Love of al-Mustafa. ^{1 4} The Arabic article describes her manner as gentle and simple, says she concentrated on the Prophet ﷺ's biography and on ethics and the spiritual life and avoided disputed questions, and notes that some critics felt she had not freed religious discourse from monotony. ¹

The English article says she was listed in the first edition of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in 2009, was one of 41 scholars who in 2006 wrote to condemn the violence that followed the Danish cartoons while rejecting the cartoons themselves, and was a signatory of 'A Common Word Between Us and You'. ³

She founded the al-Baqiyat al-Salihat association in al-Muqattam to care for orphans, the elderly and patients with cancer and Alzheimer's disease, with homes for elderly men and women and for children with cancer who come from the provinces for treatment. ^{1 3} The Arabic article says she was chosen as Egypt's ideal mother in 2020. ¹

Among her books the two articles list 'al-Khul', a remedy where there is no remedy: a comparative fiqh study' (2000), 'Musafir bila tariq' (2003), 'Sonship and fatherhood in the light of the Qur'an and Sunna' (2005), 'Women's issues in hajj and umra' (2005), 'Ahibbuhu kama ahabbakum' and 'Qalbi ma'ak' (2011), and a book on the role of zakat in protecting the economy and development (1996). ^{1 3}

She died on 24 January 2021, aged seventy-two, of Covid-19, according to the Arabic article and Wikidata; the English article gives 25 January. ^{1 2 3}

In the programme she speaks in Egyptian colloquial mixed with formal Arabic, opening each episode with a greeting to the Prophet and closing it with a greeting to the viewers. ^{5 6 7} Love is her way into the Prophet's life: he came, she says, with a message of love, and love is pure only when it passes through God. ^{5 8} She gives particular attention to the women of the biography: she devotes two episodes to the Prophet's mothers and nurses and wishes she had been one of them, says that the one who truly freed women was the Prophet, and gives an episode to the rights of woman as mother, daughter, wife and widow. ^{9 10 11 12 13} In places she criticises what she calls 'the bad times': wars, globalisation, the commodification of values and an economy emptied of ethics. ^{14 15 16} She closes the programme with a call for love of the Prophet to mean following his way, not only praise poems and birthday celebrations, and for people to love one another, stop the bloodshed and spend on education and scientific excellence. ^{17 18 19 20}