Qira'at

In Islam, qirāʼa (pl. qirāʼāt; Arabic: قراءات, lit. 'recitations or readings') refers to the ways or fashions that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is recited.^[1] More technically, the term designates the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the Quran.^[2][3] Differences between qiraʼat include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words,^[4] but also differences in stops,^{[Note 1]} vowels,^{[Note 2]} consonants^{[Note 3]} (leading to different pronouns and verb forms), entire words^{[Note 4]} and even different meanings.^{[Note 5]}. However, the variations don't change the overall message or doctrinal meanings of the Qur'an, as the differences are often subtle and contextually equivalent.^{[Note 6]}Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.^[8]

There are ten recognised schools of qiraʼat, each one deriving its name from a noted Quran reciter or "reader" (qāriʾ pl. qāriʾūn or qurrāʿ), such as Nafi‘ al-Madani, Ibn Kathir al-Makki, Abu Amr of Basra, Ibn Amir ad-Dimashqi, Aasim ibn Abi al-Najud, Hamzah az-Zaiyyat, and Al-Kisa'i. While these readers lived in the second and third century of Islam, the scholar who approved the first seven qira'at (Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid) lived a century later, and the readings themselves have a chain of transmission (like hadith) going back to the time of Muhammad.^[8] Consequently, the readers (qurrāʿ) who give their name to qira'at are part of a chain of transmission called a riwāya.^{[Note 7]} The lines of transmission passed down from a riwāya are called turuq, and those passed down from a turuq are called wujuh or awjuh (sing. wajh; Arabic: وجه, lit. 'face').^[5]

Qiraʼat should not be confused with tajwid—the rules of pronunciation, intonation, and caesuras of the Quran. Each qira'a has its own tajwid.^[9] Qiraʼat are called readings or recitations because the Quran was originally spread and passed down orally, and though there was a written text, it did not include most vowels or distinguish between many consonants, allowing for much variation.^[10] (Qiraʼat now each have their own text in modern Arabic script.)^{[Note 8]} Qira'at are also sometimes confused with ahruf—both being readings of the Quran with "unbroken chain(s) of transmission going back to the Prophet".^[4] There are multiple views on the nature of the ahruf and how they relate to the qira'at, the general view being that caliph Uthman eliminated all of the ahruf except one during the 7th century CE.^[11] The ten qira'at were canonized by Islamic scholars in early centuries of Islam.^[12]

Even after centuries of Islamic scholarship, the variants of the qira'at have been said to continue "to astound and puzzle" Islamic scholars (by Ammar Khatib and Nazir Khan),^[4] and along with ahruf make up "the most difficult topics" in Quranic studies (according to Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi).^[13] The qira'at include differences in consonantal diacritics (i‘jām), vowel marks (ḥarakāt), and the consonantal skeleton (rasm),^[14] resulting in materially different readings (see examples).^[15]

The muṣḥaf Quran that is in "general use" throughout almost all the Muslim world today^{[Note 9]} is a 1924 Egyptian edition based on the qira'a (reading) of Ḥafṣ on the authority of `Āsim (Ḥafṣ being the rāwī, or "transmitter", and `Āsim being the qārī or "reader").^[17]

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