Syed Sadaqat Ali

Qari Syed Sadaqat Ali is a Pakistani Qur'an reciter and teacher of recitation, a pupil of the Egyptian reciter Abdul Basit 'Abd us-Samad. His PTV programme AlQuran, which since 1992 has taught children reading and pronunciation of the Qur'an, made him one of Pakistan's best-known reciters; no source gives his birth year. ¹²

Born in Pakistan, he began taking part in local and international recitation competitions at a very early age and first recited on Radio Pakistan in 1966; he has appeared in more than 200 contests and won many international prizes, among them second place twice at the international Husn-e-Qirat competitions in Iran and the first first-place finish by a Pakistani at the international competition in Bangladesh. He represented Pakistan at world recital gatherings across the Middle East, Europe and North America. ¹²

His programme AlQuran began on the Pakistan Television Corporation channel in 1992 and was still being rerun in 2025; he also appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 3. He is one of the official Qur'an readers at the inaugural sessions of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, chairman of Saut ul Qura International in Pakistan, a member of the selection board of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation and of Egypt's Niqabat ul Qura, and he has trained generations of young reciters in workshops and academies. ¹²

The President of Pakistan awarded him the Pride of Performance (1988), the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2015 and the Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2020; he also won a PTV Award in 1998. ²¹³