Egyptian Islamic preacher Abla El-Kahlawy died at the age of 72 on Sunday night after contracting the coronavirus. El-Kahlawy was admitted to hospital in a deteriorating condition.

Health minister Hala Zayed told the media she had delegated Hossam Hosny, head of the health ministry’s Scientific Committee to Combat Coronavirus, to check up on El-Kahlawy's health on Sunday morning.

Zayed added El-Kahlawy was in poor health and her condition was deteriorating. Sources close to the Islamic preacher's family said El-Kahlawy was isolated at a quarantine hospital for more than a week and was placed on a ventilator in the intensive care unit.

First Lady Entissar Amer mourned the death of El-Kahlawy, daughter of late famous Egyptian actor Mohamed El-Kahlawy. “Egypt has bid farewell to an honourable and great model of the Egyptian woman who is faithful to her religion and nation,” Amer wrote on Facebook on Monday.

She added that El-Kahlawy passed away “after a journey of giving and an honourable humanitarian journey on the path of goodness and dawah.”

Dawah is generally defined as inviting people to embrace Islam.

Soft-spoken El-Kahlawy was a professor at the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for girls at Al-Azhar University. She presented many religious TV programmes and was followed especially by women.

She established a charitable association for orphan care in Cairo’s Mokattam district. The association, Al-Baqiat Al-Salehat, also cared for cancer patients and old people with Alzheimer's.