Um Hassan is 63 years old and is learning to read for the first time. She sits in the back row of a literacy class held in the women's section of her local mosque in a village outside Sohag, Upper Egypt, tracing Arabic letters in her copybook with the concentration of someone doing something that matters enormously. She was never sent to school as a child — it was not the custom in her family, in her village, in her time. Now her granddaughter — who is nine and can read fluently — sits beside her and helps her when she gets stuck.
The programme
The mosque literacy programme that Um Hassan attends is operated through a network of Al-Azhar-affiliated local religious associations, in partnership with Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) and the national literacy authority. It is part of a broader government drive to address adult illiteracy — which, despite decades of effort, still affects around 25 percent of Egyptians, with rates substantially higher among older women in rural Upper Egypt.
What distinguishes the mosque programme from other literacy initiatives is its integration into religious life. Classes are scheduled to fit around prayer times. The first texts students learn to read are short Quranic verses and the names of Allah — giving the skill of reading an immediate spiritual meaning. Teachers are often female mosque employees (ma'dhounah) or trained volunteers from local Islamic women's associations, giving students a sense of instruction from someone embedded in their own community and faith tradition.
Hundreds of classrooms
The programme now operates in over 3,000 mosques across Egypt, with the highest concentration in the governorates of Sohag, Qena, Assiut, and Minya — areas where female literacy rates have historically been lowest. Each class has between ten and twenty students. Teachers receive a small stipend from Awqaf and training from Al-Azhar's community outreach division. The curriculum covers basic reading and writing in Arabic, basic numeracy, and practical life skills — filling in official forms, reading medicine labels, understanding bank statements and legal documents.
The results, assessed independently by Cairo University researchers, show that programme participants progress significantly faster than participants in secular literacy programmes, with higher retention rates and more consistent attendance. Researchers attribute this partly to the social environment — the mosque context provides community and accountability — and partly to the religious motivation that participants bring to their learning.
Islam and literacy
The Islamic tradition's relationship with literacy is ancient and foundational. The first word revealed of the Quran — Iqra, 'Read' — established learning as the gateway to faith. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ released prisoners of war who had no money by requiring them to teach ten Muslims to read and write. Al-Azhar University, now over a thousand years old, began as a mosque and remains one. For Um Hassan, learning to read at 63 is not late — it is the fulfilment of something she was always supposed to do.
Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.
When she finishes the programme, Um Hassan says she intends to read the Quran for herself for the first time — not listening to it recited, but reading the words herself, in her own voice. 'I have been hearing it for sixty years,' she says. 'Now I want to see it.'