Maria Ulfah is an internationally acclaimed reciter of the Holy Qur’an. She is currently the manager of the Central Institute for the Development of Qur’anic Recitation in Jakarta. She is the first woman to win an International Qur’an Recitation competition in Malaysia in 1980. She is also the winner of the two Indonesian national Qur’an Recitation contests. She has popularized the Egyptian style of recitation and is internationally recognized as one of the world’s master reciters. Ulfah is a scholar of the history of Quranic recitation.

She serves as a lecturer at the Institute for the Study of Quran and at the National University of Indonesia. She has also been referred to as Southeast Asia’s premier female reciter of the Qur’an. She has also listed in the Muslim 500 list of 2020.