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Question

We have learned that there are different levels of reading in the reading of the Holy Qur'an; a slow, a medium and a quicker way.  Would the reading of Sheikh Abdullah Basfar in his "muallim" (teaching) tapes be an example of the slow way?  Then he has a reading taken from his reading in prayer I think which is quicker.  Would that be the medium way?  If possible could you give examples of the different ways?

Answer

There are three levels of speed in reciting the Qur’an.  The first is called which is reading the Qur'an slowly and with serenity while pondering the meaning and observing the tajweed rules, giving each letter its rights as to characteristics and articulation points, lengthening the letters of madd, which must be lengthened, and not lengthening that which is not supposed to be lengthened.  It is to recite the heavy letters heavy and the light letters light ( and ) as required by the tajweed rules.  This is the best level of reading.

Another level of reading is called , and it is a swift method of reading the Qur'an with observation of the rules of tajweed.  The reader then must be careful not to cut off the lengthened letters, not to do away with the ghunnah, and not to shorten the vowels to the point that the reading is not correct.

The third level of reading is called   It is reading at a medium level of speed between the two above levels, while preserving and observing the rules of tajweed.

The reading of Sheikh Basfar in his mu’allim (teaching) tapes would be an example of the tahqeeq, or slowest way of recitation.  The recitation from his prayer tends to be faster than the medium way, more like . 

 

It would have been ideal for us to provide examples of the same reciter for the three different levels of recitation, but we have to use a different reciter for each level.

The first, is an example of reciting with .

Click here to listen to this type of recitation

 

The second, that of .  May we add that it was quite difficult to find a good example of this speed of recitation, and some may consider it the first level ( ) instead of .

Click here to listen to this type of recitation

The last example is of .

Click here to listen to this type of recitation