I recently read in the book "Ghaayatul Mureed" that 5 counts for maddul Munfassil and Muttassil is not transmitted from Imam AsShaatibee in his famous..

Assalaamu 'Alaikum wa Rahmarullaahi wa Barakaatuhu

I recently read in the book "Ghaayatul Mureed" that 5 counts for maddul Munfassil and Muttassil is not transmitted from Imam AsShaatibee in his famous poem Ash Shaatibiyyah. However the 5 counts reference is found in At Tayseer and is also transmitted from Imam 'Aasim but not through Ash Shaatibiyyah.

As a result 4 counts is stated as 'al awla' the preferred. (I have found the 4 count preference in quite a few books).

Yet in the vast majority of books I have found that in the chapter of Mudood the lengthening is listed as (4 or) 5 counts and the reference is always to the tareeq from Ash Shaatibiyyah.

I am confused. Is 5 counts transmitted from Ash Shaatibee in his poem or transmitted separately from him outside of the poem or not transmitted from him at all? If so why do most books refer the 5 counts as through him/his
poem?

Jazaakallaahu khairan

Wassalaamu 'Alaikum wa Rahmarullaahi wa Barakaatuhu

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

It is true that the five vowel counts for ‘Aasim is not mentioned in the poem , better known as Ash-Shatibiyyah, but then again, none of the mudood lengths for those who lengthen more than two vowel counts in  for the various readers is mentioned in the poem.  He only mentioned specifically the qira’aat of those who lengthen  two vowel counts all the time, or as one of two allowed ways, leaving us to understand that the rest of the different qira’aat read with more than two vowel counts for .  He also did not mention in his poem that the riwaayah of Warsh and the qiraa’ah of Hamzah lengthens both  and  six vowel counts. 

Imam Ash-Shaatibiyy, in the introduction part of his poem states that he based his poem on At-Tayseer aiming to summarize the points of  At-Tayseer in his poem:

I intended to summarize the At-Tayseer in that which Allah makes easy

And the poem [Ash-Shaatibiyyah] responded by the help of Allah with many uses

In At-Tayseer, Imam Abee ‘Amr ‘Uthmaan Ad-Daani mentions the five vowel counts for ‘Aasim by saying Warsh and Hamzah had the longest lengths for mudood (six vowel counts), followed by ‘Aasim, followed by Ibn ‘Aamir, etc.  Since Ibn ‘Aamir has solely  four vowel counts for each of  and  in tareeq Ash-Shaatibiyyah, we can then derive the fact that ‘Aasim had a longer medd than that, but less than six vowel counts, i.e. five vowel counts.

Imam Ash-Shaatibiyy read the qira’ah of ‘Aasim with five vowel counts for  and  as well as four.  This is passed down to us in authentic chains from Imam Ash-Shaatibiyy and of course was passed to him in authentic chains from the Prophet, .  The five vowel counts transmitted to us from ‘Aasim though is less well known than the four vowel counts, and therefore the four vowel counts is used more prevalently and better known. 

It is correct to say then that the five vowel counts for ‘Aasim is from the way of Ash-Shaatibiyy, since he read with them, he didn’t state any of the longer mudood (more than two vowel counts)  in his poem for any of the specific qira’aat , and he made his poem a summary of At-Tayseer book, which mentions that ‘Aasim lengthens less than Warsh and Hamzah and more than Ibn ‘Aamir. 

Wa iyyaakum.   Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.