Monday, 11 May 2026 (24 Dhuʻl-Qiʻdah 1447 AH)
Question: Are all of the seven readings (qirā’āt) actually mass-transmitted (mutawātir) from the Messenger (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace)? And why did some make them ten?
And since the Companions heard all of them from the Messenger (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace), why did they not teach them all at once? As, for example, ‘Abd al-Basit reads now, and then in this way the narrators would transmit all of them from them; so that the chain of the reading of Nāfi‘ and his transmitters would be a way for the reading of Ḥafṣ, and so on?
And why is this reading attributed to so-and-so, and that one to so-and-so?
Or was it that the Messenger (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) would sometimes recite with one reading and sometimes with another? If so, why did the Companions not transmit one surah in one reading and another surah in a different reading? That is, that a Companion should transmit Sūrat al-Baqarah, for example, according to what Warsh narrates from Nāfi‘, and should transmit Āl ‘Imrān according to what Ḥafṣ narrates from ‘Āṣim, and so on?
And how did the Messenger (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) recite the seven readings to them, and yet each group among them transmits only one reading from them? Did he designate specific transmitters for each reading? Or was it that they only heard one narration from him? And were the readings different only because of the differences of the dialects of the Arab tribes, and the Messenger (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) permitted that even if he did not recite with it himself?
What increases the depth of this [problem] within me is that most of the difference is in the way the words are pronounced, such as the hamzahs: some pronounce them, some drop them, and some make them easier (by lightening them), according to the dialects of the Arabs, and other such things.
And another type of difference is in some letters and vowels; does this go back to their differing over reading the rasm (consonantal outline of the muṣḥaf), such as malik and mālik, between which there is nothing but a small alif; and such as “ansāran li-llāh” (according to Nāfi‘) and “ansāra Allāh” (according to Ḥafṣ): there is no difference between them except the presence or absence of tanwīn, otherwise the letters are similar; only in the first instance we attach the alif to the first word, and in the second we attach it to the second word.
Clarify this matter for me, for it troubles me greatly, and I want to uproot my anxiety from its roots, and you are the best surgeon for such ailments. May Allah reward you with the good of both abodes.
Answer:
All of the seven readings are mass-transmitted (mutawātir) from the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace); and the reason why the scholars did not make them ten is because of the difference regarding the tawātur of the remaining three as opposed to the seven.
And each of the reciters read with the reading that was in agreement with his own language and Arabic dialect. So the one who inclines the alif towards the yā’ cannot read according to the language of one who does not incline it; and the one who lightens the hamzah by tashīl (easing) finds that his tongue does not comply with reading according to the language of one who pronounces it fully; and the one who lightens it by naql (transferring the vowel) cannot read according to the language of one who does not lighten it by naql, and the reverse likewise.
From here it was that each of the imams of recitation transmitted from the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) that which suited him of the reading, and not that which did not come easily to him.
And the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) would recite for each one that which suited his language, as a concession and facilitation for the Ummah, knowing the difficulty of memorising it upon a single language: "And he does not speak from [his own] inclination" [al-Najm:3].
- And the difference among the reciters in something like malik and -ālik is not due to the rasm of the muṣḥaf; because the Qur’an is received by hearing it from the mouths of the reciters. Thus, the people of Madinah received the recitation of al-Fātiḥah and other than it from the mouths of their reciters, including the word malik; they heard it without an alif, and those who came after them received it from their predecessors likewise, by hearing and direct taking from the mouths (of the reciters), not from the muṣḥafs.
This was the method relied upon by the scholars of the Ummah in the early centuries, and it remains so up to this day.
And measure upon what we have mentioned the case of “ansāran li-llāh” and “ansāra Allāh”: each group heard from its predecessors what it heard, and they received it from their mouths. And in the same way they received from the mouths (of the reciters) the modes of lengthening (mad) and their measures, and the forms of the word, such as thinness and heaviness (tarqīq and tafkhīm), concealment, assimilation, clear pronunciation, rūm, ishmām, imālah, pausing and connecting, and so on; all of that they received by hearing and perfected it with the shaykhs until they preserved it just as they had heard it.
In conclusion: the difference that exists among the seven readings is not a cause for anxiety, and it should not be a source of problem; because the seven readings are mutawātir from the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace), and the Ummah of Muhammad (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) has passed generation after generation reciting with each one of them without mutual rejection.
- And as for what has been narrated from Imam al-Hadi (Peace be upon him) that he considered correct only the reading of the people of Madinah and not the others among the readings, the matter with him is thus because he only ever heard the reading of the people of Madinah. And if he (Peace be upon him) had grown up and been raised in Mecca or in Kufa, he would have heard all the reciters reciting with what they heard from their predecessors, and the soundness of what he heard would have been established with him due to the consensus of the reciters of those lands upon their readings.
And if for al-Hadi (Peace be upon him) no reading other than that of the people of Madinah was mass-transmitted, then for others readings other than that of the people of Madinah have been mass-transmitted; and in that case there is no hindrance for a Muslim to recite with whichever of the seven is made easy for him, neither from the standpoint of transmission, nor from the standpoint of language, nor from the standpoint of meaning.
Thus, the reading “ansāra Allāh” “helpers of Allah” is correct from the standpoint of transmission, correct from the standpoint of language, and correct from the standpoint of meaning; and likewise the reading “ansāran li-llāh” (“helpers for Allah”). There is no rational impediment to this; so it is permissible that the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) should recite it at one time with annexation iḍāfah: “helpers of Allah”, and at another time without annexation “helpers for Allah”.
- And the difference between the two readings may have a wisdom and a benefit. For example, His saying, exalted is He: "And upon those who are able to fast, [their] ransom is feeding a poor person / feeding poor persons" [al-Baqarah:184]; one of the two readings clarifies the amount that is obligatory to be given in food for each day, and the other reading clarifies what is upon the one who has broken the fast for many days or a few days. And although there is some generality in it as far as stating the measure of what is obligatory, the detail appears from the second reading.
- And in the readings “malik” (“king”) and “mālik” (“owner”) the wisdom is that they show that Allah, exalted is He, is characterised by each of those two attributes and is called upon by both of them; and measure other examples by this.
Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3