Name Sheikh Awol | ||
Sheikh Muhammed Awol (born 1934) is an Ethiopian MADIH.
He was born in Kombolcha, Debub Wollo Zone; his father was Haji Hamza Maeruf and his mother Rahma Omer. He Completed his study on the recitation of the Qur'an under his own father at an early age. His father, a local scholar and Muhib, initiated him to continue his Islamic studies at a nearby famous learning centre called Gojjam, near Bati, and stayed for seven years learning fiqh. It seems that the fate of the Menzuma star was not in the rural area but in the metropolitan) Addis Ababa. At his own initiative he moved to Addis Ababa although he had no previous acquaintances and family to support him. He made his meager income at Anwar Mosque as a scribe, copying Islamic literature.
The young Muhammed eventually joined the Muslim youth club at the Anwar mosque. Following his talent, he started working under the Menzuma wing of the club, where he got his start The Ethiopian radio aired his Menzuma every Monday under the Afarigha program and on every Thursday and Friday on the Arabic section of the broadcast. Meanwhile, Sheikh Muhammad started his career as a religious teacher at Yemen Community School. When the military Junta assumed power, Sheikh Muhammad was ordered to employ his skill of Menzuma as an instrument to propagate the ideals of the socialist revolution. He declined, and fled Ethiopia for Saudi Arabia. He eventually secured a scholarship from Al Azhar University in Cairo, where he studied Arabic language for seven years. After completing his studies at Al-Azhar, he was again in Saudi Arabia as a civil servant.
In 1999 Sheikh Muhammad returned home to Ethiopia. A year after he published his first Menzuma album. Twelve albums were to come in subsequent years. Recently, beside the audio cassettes, some of his Menzum's are appearing in VCD productions. Sheikh Muhammad is using his father's and other Wollo 'Ulama panegyric works in his presentation. In fact. some of them are composed by him. In the majority of the productions, the Zema (melody) belongs to him. His father, Sheikh Hamza Maeruf, who died two years ago, was by himself known in composing and presenting Mezuma though he, unlike his son, avoids Presenting himself from the electronic media. It can be said that Muhammad Awol is to a great extent a product of his father. The contents of the Menzuma recited by Mohammed Awol are diverse, ranging from theology to social issues like marriage, peace and ethics. The greater focus is on the life of the prophet and his immediate followers. The impact of the work of Sheikh Muhammad among the Muslim populace and also the Christians, especially in Wollo, is enormous and his cassettes are in the best Her list compared with other Lecture format Islamic works. Sheikh Muhammed Awol-s fame is practically observed during the night of the month of Ramadn in which he leads the Zikr and Du'ae (meditation and prayer, a kind of Kidase) ceremony in one of the most famous mosque in Addis Ababa.