WHICH Quran ... do reciters quote? When asking Muslim experts, who know the Quran by heart and were trained in the art of reciting the Quran (tajwiid), one discovers there is not just “one” Quran, but there are different Qurans. These they call readings or ways of reciting (qiraaat) the Quran. For each reading of the Quran they cite a Muslim authority from the early times of Islam, whose Quran recitation is, to the present day, taken to be correct. Every reading of such an authority was attested by two Muslim guarantors each in a different way. The version of the Quran that is distributed nearly everywhere today as an Arabic book contains the reading of Asim (died 745) as attested by Hafs (died 796). There are, however, six other readings the Quran. One of them is the reading of Nafi (died 785) -- as attested by Warsh (died 812) -- which is still printed today in Morocco. The other five readings are those of Ibn Amir (died 736), of Ibn Kathir (died 738), of Abu Amr (died 770), of Hamza (died 773), and of al-Kasai (died 804). Some Muslim scholars even accept a total of 14 different readings of the Quran each named after its Islamic authority and respectively attested by two Muslim guarantors each in his own way. In 1988 Saudi Arabia authorized the publication of a version of the Quran in which the reading of Asim as attested by Hafs is printed in the center of each page, while the margins of each page show you how 19 additional Muslim guarantors have recited the respective verse (provided there was a deviation from the majority text).
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 10:54:00 +0000
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