Qira'at
In Islam, Qira'at are "the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the Quran". There are ten different recognised schools of qira'at, each one deriving its name from a noted Quran reciter or "reader". While these Quran readers lived in the second and third century of Islam, the scholar who first approved of the qira'at lived a century later, so that the people who passed down the readings are part of the system of qira'at. Thus it is more accurate to say about a reading of the Quran, "this is the riwaya of Hafs", and not "this is Hafs".
Qira'at are sometimes confused with Ahruf—both being variants of the Quran and both said to have seven different varieties. However varieties of ahruf were discontinued by order of caliph Uthman sometime in the mid-7th century CE when "the Quran began to be read in only one harf ", while the seven readings of the Qira'at were noted by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid and canonized in the 8th century CE.
A number of hadith provide an Islamic basis for the different variants of the Quran. These include one where Muhammad listens to recitations of various companions and approves of each of them; where he corrects Umar's berating another companion's recitation saying the "Quran has been revealed in seven Ahruf"; or claim Muhammad asked the angel Jibreel to teach him different styles of recitation until he had learned seven.
Differences between Qira'at are slight and include differences in stops, vowels, letters, and sometimes entire words.
Recitation should be in accordance with rules of pronunciation, intonation, and caesuras established by Muhammad and first recorded during the eighth century CE. The maṣḥaf Quran that is in "general use" throughout almost all the Muslim world today, is a 1924 Egyptian edition based on the Qira'at "reading of Ḥafṣ on the authority of `Asim",. Each melodic passage centers on a single tone level, but the melodic contour and melodic passages are largely shaped by the reading rules. Skilled readers may read professionally for urban mosques.
History
According to Islamic belief, the Qur'an is recorded in the preserved tablet in heaven, and was revealed to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.Quranic orthography
Early manuscripts of the Qur’ān did not use diacritics either for vowels or to distinguish the different values of the rasm , -- or at least used them "only sporadically and insufficiently to create a completely unambigous text".These early manuscripts included the "official" copy of the Quran created by ‘Uthman, according to the Saudi Salafi website IslamQA:
When ‘Uthmaan made copies of the Qur’aan, he did so according to one style, but he omitted the dots and vowel points so that some other styles could also be accommodated. So the Mus'haf that was copied in his time could be read according to other styles, and whatever styles were accommodated by the Mus'haf of ‘Uthmaan remained in use, and the styles that could not be accommodated fell into disuse. The people had started to criticize one another for reciting differently, so ‘Uthmaan united them by giving them one style of the Qur’aan.
Gradual steps were taken to improve the orthography of the Quran, in the first century with dots to distinguish similarly-shaped consonants, followed by marks and nunation in different-coloured ink from the text. Later the different colours were replaced with marks used in written Arabic today.
Recitations
In the mean time, before the variations were finally committed entirely to writing, the Quran was preserved by recitation and recitations of the Quran were passed down from one or more prominent reciters of a style of narration who had memorized the Quran to the next generation. According to Okvath Csaba,It was during the period of the Successors and shortly thereafter that exceptional reciters became renowned as teachers of Qur'anic recitation in cities like Makkah, Madina, Kufa, Basra, and greater Syria. They attracted students from all over the expanding Muslim state and their modes of recitations were then attached to their names. It is therefore commonly said that he recites according to the reading of Ibn Kathir or Nafic; this, however, does not mean that these reciters are the originators of these recitations, their names have been attached to the mode of recitation simply because their rendition of the Prophetic manner of recitation was acclaimed for authenticity and accuracy and their names became synonymous with these Qur'anic recitations. In fact, their own recitation goes back to the Prophetic mode of recitation through an unbroken chain.
Each reciter had variations in their tajwid rules and occasional words in their recitation of the Qur'an are different or of a different morphology with the same root. The different words compliment other recitations and add to the meaning, and are a source of exegesis.
Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley gives an example of a line of transmission line "you are likely to find... in the back of a Qur'an" from the Warsh harf, going backwards from Warsh to Allah: "'the riwaya of Imam Warsh from Nafi' al-Madini from Abu Ja'far Yazid ibn al-Qa'qa' from 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas from Ubayy ibn Ka'b from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, from Jibril, peace be upon him, from the Creator.'"
The ten Qari of the recitations lived in the second and third century of Islam.. The seven qira'at readings which are currently notable were selected in the forth century by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid from prominent reciters of his time, three from Kufa and one each from Mecca, Medina, and Basra and Damascus.
Each reciter recited to two narrators whose narrations are known as riwaya and named after its primary narrator. Each rawi has turuq with more variants created by notable students of the master who recited them and named after the student of the master. Passed down from Turuq are wujuh: the wajh of so-and-so from the tariq of so-and-so. There are about twenty riwayat and eighty turuq.
In the 1730s, Quran translator George Sale noted seven principal editions of the Quran, "two of which were published and used at Medina, a third at Mecca, a fourth at Cufa, a fifth at Basra, a sixth in Syria, and a seventh called the common or vulgar edition." He states that "the chief disagreement between their several editions of the Koran, consists in the division and number of the verses."
Reciting
was the first to develop a recorded science for tajwid, giving the rules of tajwid names and putting it into writing in his book called al-Qiraat. He wrote about 25 reciters, including the 7 mutawatir reciters. He made the reality, transmitted through reciters of every generation, a science with defined rules, terms, and enunciation.Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid wrote a book called Kitab al-Sab’ fil-qirā’āt. He is the first to limit the number of reciters to the seven known. Some scholars, such as Ibn al-Jazari, took this list of seven from Ibn Mujahid and added three other reciters to form the canonical list of ten.
Imam Al-Shatibi wrote a poem outlining the two most famous ways passed down from each of seven strong imams, known as ash-Shatibiyyah. In it, he documented the rules of recitation of Naafi’, Ibn Katheer, Abu ‘Amr, Ibn ‘Aamir, ‘Aasim, al-Kisaa’i, and Hamzah. It is 1173 lines long and a major reference for the seven qira’aat.
Ibn al-Jazari wrote two large poems about Qira'at and tajwid. One was Durrat Al-Maa'nia , in the readings of three major reciters, added to the seven in the Shatibiyyah, making it ten. The other is Tayyibat An-Nashr, which is 1014 lines on the ten major reciters in great detail, of which he also wrote a commentary.
Variations among readings
Examples of differences between readings
Most of the differences between the various readings involve consonant/diacritical marks and vowels marks, but not in the rasm or "skeleton" of the writing. The examples below show differences between the Hafs Qari and two others—Al-Duri and Warsh. All have differences in the consonantal/diacritical marking, but only one has a difference in the rasm: "then it is what" v. "it is what", where a "fa" consonant letter is added to the verse.;Al-Duri and Ḥafs
| Ḥafs | Al-Duri | Ḥafs | Al-Duri | verse |
| وَيُكَفِّرُ | وَنُكَفِّرُ | and He will remove | and We will remove | Al-Baqara 2:271 |
The "He" in Hafs is referring to God and the "We" in Al-Duri is also referring to God, this is due to the fact that God refers to Himself in both the singular form and plural form by using the royal "We".
;Ḥafs and Warsh
| رواية ورش عن نافع | رواية حفص عن عاصم | Ḥafs | Warsh | verse |
| يَعْمَلُونَ | تَعْمَلُونَ | you do | they do | Al-Baqara 2:85 |
| مَا تَنَزَّلُ | مَا نُنَزِّلُ | We do not send down... | they do not come down... | Al-Ḥijr 15:8 |
| قُل | قَالَ | he said | Say! | Al-Anbiyā' 21:4 |
| كَثِيرًا | كَبِيرًا | mighty | multitudinous | Al-Aḥzāb 33:68 |
| بِمَا | فَبِمَا | then it is what | it is what | Al-Shura 42:30 |
| نُدْخِلْهُ | يُدْخِلْهُ | He makes him enter | We make him enter | Al-Fatḥ 48:17 |
Note the first difference in plurality in the first row, the "you" in Hafs refers to the actions of more than one person and the "They" in Warsh is also referring to the actions of more than one person. In the 2nd row "We" refers to God in Hafs and the "They" in Warsh refers to what is not being sent down by God. In the last verse the "He" in Hafs is referring to God and the "We" in Warsh is also referring to God, this is due to the fact that God refers to Himself in both the singular form and plural form by using the royal "We".
The ten readers and their transmitters
According to Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley and Quran eLearning, the seven qira’a are mutawatir, and the three are Mashhur. In addition to the ten "recognized" or "canonical modes" of qira’at, there are four other modes of recitation – Ibn Muhaysin, al-Yazeedi, al-Hasan and al-A‘mash -- but at least according to one source, these last four recitations are "odd" -- in the judgement of "the correct, favoured view, which is what we learned from most of our shaykhs" -- and so are not recognized.The three Mashhur Qiraat are:
Popularity of Hafs ‘an ‘Asim
One qira'a that has reached overwhelming popularity is the Hafs ‘an ‘Asim, specifically the standard Egyptian edition of the Qur’an first published on July 10, 1924 in Cairo. Its publication has been called a "terrific success", and the edition has been described as one "now widely seen as the official text of the Qur’an", so popular among both Sunni and Shi'a that the common belief among less well-informed Muslims is "that the Qur’an has a single, unambiguous reading", namely the 1924 Cairo version. Another source states that "for all practical purposes", it is the one Quranic version in "general use" in the Muslim world today.Among the reasons given for the overwhelming popularity of Hafs an Asim is that it is easy to recite and that Allah has chosen it to be widespread. Ingrid Mattson credits mass-produced printing press mushaf with increasing the availability of the written Quran, but also with making one version widespread at the expense of diversity of qira'at.
Gabriel Said Reynolds emphasizes that the goal of the Egyptian government in publishing the edition was not to delegitimize the other qira’at, but to eliminate variations found in Qur’anic texts used in state schools, and to do this they chose to preserve one of the fourteen qira’at “readings”, namely that of Hafs ‘an ‘Asim.
Criteria for Categorization
All accepted qira'at follow three basic rules:- Conformity to the consonantal skeleton of the Uthmānic codex.
- Consistency with Arabic grammar.
- Authentic chain of transmission.
''Qira'at'' and ''Ahruf''
Difference between them
Although both Qira'at and Ahruf refer to variants of the Quran, they are not the same. Ahruf variants were more significant and Caliph 'Uthman is believed to have eliminated all but one, so that the different qira'at come from just one of the seven Ahruf of the Quran.The seven qira'at readings which are currently notable were selected by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid from prominent reciters of his time, three from Kufa and one each from Mecca, Medina, and Basra and Damascus. IslamQA website notes that while both mention seven in number, the seven in the seven qira’at comes not from the Qur’an or Sunnah but from the "ijtihaad independent reasoning] of Ibn Mujaahid", who may have been tempted to arrive at that number by the fact that were seven ahruf.
Bilal Philips writes that the Quran continued to be read according to the seven ahruf until midway through Caliph 'Uthman's rule, when confusion developed in the outlying provinces about the Quran's recitation. Some Arab tribes boasted about the superiority of their ahruf, and rivalries began; new Muslims also began combining the forms of recitation out of ignorance. Caliph 'Uthman decided to make official copies of the Quran according to the writing conventions of the Quraysh and send them with the Quranic reciters to the Islamic centres. His decision was approved by Sahaabah, and all unofficial copies of the Quran were ordered destroyed; Uthman carried out the order, distributing official copies and destroying unofficial copies, so that the Quran began to be read in one harf, the same one in which it is written and recited throughout world today.
Philips writes that Qira'at is primarily a method of pronunciation used in recitations of the Quran. These methods are different from the seven forms, or modes, in which the Quran was revealed. The methods have been traced back to Muhammad through a number of Sahaabah who were noted for their Quranic recitations; they recited the Quran to Muhammad, and received his approval. The Sahaabah included:
- Ubayy ibn Ka'b
- Ali Ibn Abi Talib
- Zayd ibn Thabit
- Abdullah ibn Masud
- Abu Darda
- Abu Musa al-Ash'ari
According to Philips, in the next generation of Muslims were many scholars who learned the methods of recitation from the Sahaabah and taught them to others. Centres of Quranic recitation developed in al-Madeenah, Makkah, Kufa, Basrah and Syria, leading to the development of Quranic recitation as a science. By the mid-eighth century CE, a large number of scholars were considered specialists in the field of recitation. Most of their methods were authenticated by chains of reliable narrators, going back to Muhammad. The methods which were supported by a large number of reliable narrators on each level of their chain were called mutawaatir, and were considered the most accurate. Methods in which the number of narrators were few on any level of the chain were known as shaadhdh. Some scholars of the following period began the practice of designating a set number of individual scholars from the previous period as the most noteworthy and accurate. The number seven became popular by the mid-10th century, since it coincided with the number of dialects in which the Quran was revealed.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi writes about hadith in Muwatta that if Ahruf are taken in the context of pronunciation, the content of the hadith rejects this meaning; Umar and Hisham belonged to the same tribe, and members of the same tribe cannot use different pronunciations. Ghamidi questions the hadith which claim "variant readings", on the basis of Quranic verses, the Quran was compiled during Muhammad's lifetime and questions the hadith which report its compilation during Uthman's reign. Since most of these narrations are reported by Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Imam Layth Ibn Sa'd wrote to Imam Malik:
Abu 'Ubayd Qasim Ibn Sallam reportedly selected twenty-five readings in his book. The seven readings which are currently notable were selected by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid at the end of the third century. It is generally accepted that although their number cannot be ascertained, every reading is Quran which has been reported through a chain of narration and is linguistically correct. Some readings are regarded as mutawatir, but their chains of narration indicate that they are ahad and their narrators are suspect in the eyes of rijal authorities.
Scriptural basis for seven Ahruf
;HadithAccording to Bismika Allahuma, "the Qur’aan was revealed in seven ahruf." The proof for this is found in many hadith, "so much so that it reaches the level of mutawaatir." One scholar, Jalaal ad-Deen as-Suyootee, claims that twenty-one traditions of Companions of the Prophet state "that the Qur’aan was revealed in seven ahruf".
Hadith literature differs on variants of the Quran. According to some hadith, the Quran was revealed in seven Ahruf or styles; Muhammad listens to their recitations and approves each of them. According to Saalih al-Munajjid, "the best of the scholarly opinions" defining Ahruf is wording which differs but has the same meaning. The best-known hadith on Ahruf is reported in the Muwatta, compiled by Malik ibn Anas. According to Malik,
Rationale
According to Oliver Leaman, "the origin" of the differences of qira'at "lies in the fact that the linguistic system of the Quran incorporates the most familiar Arabic dialects and vernacular forms in use at the time of the Revelation." According to Okvath Csaba, "Different recitations take into account dialectal features of Arabic language..."Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley writes that "the different words" in the different Qiraat "compliment other recitations and add to the meaning, and are a source of exegesis." Ammar Khatib and Nazir Khan contend that "in certain cases" the differences in qirāʾāt "add nuances in meaning, complementing one another."
Oxford Islamic Studies Online writes that "according to classical Muslim sources", the variations that crept up before Uthman created the "official" Quran "dealt with subtleties of pronunciations and accents and not with the text itself which was transmitted and preserved in a culture with a strong oral tradition."
Questions
Other reports of what the Prophet said seem to contradict the presence of variant readings -- ahruf or qirāʾāt.Abu Abd Al-Rahman al-Sulami writes, "The reading of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Zayd ibn Thabit and that of all the Muhajirun and the Ansar was the same. They would read the Quran according to the Qira'at al-'ammah. This is the same reading which was read out twice by the Prophet to Gabriel in the year of his death. Zayd ibn Thabit was also present in this reading the Ardah-i akhirah. It was this very reading that he taught the Quran to people till his death". According to Ibn Sirin, "The reading on which the Quran was read out to the prophet in the year of his death is the same according to which people are reading the Quran today".
Examining the hadith of Umar's surprise in finding out "this Quran has been revealed in seven Ahruf", Suyuti, a noted 15th-century Islamic theologian, concludes the "best opinion" of this hadith is that it is "mutashabihat", i.e. its meaning "cannot be understood."
Another critic, Shezad Saleem, has doubts about the validity of the hadith:
it is known that Hisham had accepted Islam on the day Makkah was conquered. If this Hadith is accepted, it would mean that for almost twenty years even the closest Companions of the Prophet like ‘Umar were unaware of the Qur’an being revealed in some other reading.
Sam Shamoun raises a number of questions about the basis of Qira'at.
At least two Sahih al-Bukhari hadith explicitly state the Qur'an was revealed in the dialect of the Quraysh -- making no mention of other ahruf—and that in case there are disagreements over recitation, this should clear everything up.
Narrated Anas bin Malik: and said to them. “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit regarding any dialectic Arabic utterance of the Quran, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, for the Quran was revealed in this dialect.” So they did it.
Narrated Anas bin Malik: Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their differences in the recitation of the Qur'an, so he said to 'Uthman, "O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book as Jews and the Christians did before." So 'Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to 'Uthman. 'Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, 'Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and 'AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. 'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Said bin Thabit added, "A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. : ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.’ ”
Furthermore, while some hadith refer to ahruf, there is no mention of seven ahruf or of different ways of reciting the Quran in the Quran itself, nor does the Quran ever refer to itself in the plural,. Since there are multiple verses of the Quran declaring that "our revelations" have been "explained in detail", some mention of the existence multiple recitation or variants there would be expected, according to Shamoun.
Doubts
Codification time controversy
Non-Muslim Islamic scholar Fred Donner argues that the large number of qira'at stemming from early "regional traditions" of Medina, Kufa, Basra, Syria, etc.; with variations in the rasm "as well" vowelling, suggests evidence not for qira'at being slight deviations from an original text developing over time from in the different pronunciation of different dialects; but for their being different Qurans that had not yet "crystalized into a single, immutable codified form... within one generation of Muhammad". Donner argues that there is evidence for both the hypotheses that the Quran was codified earlier than the standard narrative and for codification later.But Donner does agree with the standard narrative that despite the presence of "some significant variants" in the qira'at literature, there are not "long passages of otherwise wholly unknown text claiming to be Quran, or that appear to be used as Quran -- only variations within a text that is clearly recognizable as a version of a known Quranic passage". Revisionist historian Michael Cook also states that the Quran "as we know it", is "remarkably uniform" in the rasm.