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Question as Salaamu `Alaikum wa Rahmatullaah, I'm currently
memorizing the Qur'an both Hafs `an `Asim and Shu'bah. I have a question
in regards to the recitation of Shu'bah. My teacher told me that he is a
student of `Asim, and that his recitation is not a "qiraa'at", but
actually a "riwahah". I actually don't understand this.
I understand what riwahah is, but I still don't understand why this makes some
of the words in the Qu'ran according to Shu'bah. For example, in Hafs, a
word might be pronounced "yadkhaloona", but `an Shu'bah, it is
pronounced "yudkhiloona". I hope you understand what my
question is because when I tried to ask my teacher this, she didn't really
understand me :) Answer Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh, May Allah make easy for you the learning of Qur’an and its recitation. Usually a student of the Qur’an learns and memorizes one riwaayah before going on and learning another riwaayah or a different qira’ah. It helps avoid confusion and assists in the important goal of mastering a recitation. Imam Ibn
Mujaahad, when he wrote about the different recitations, chose seven leaders
of the many leaders of recitation, and chose two different famous narrators of
the leader. This way then was
adopted by Imam Ash-Shaatibiyy in his prose on the seven qira’aat, and Imam
Ibn Al-Jazaree in his prose on the three qira’aat completing the seven to
make ten. The leader’s way of recitation is called qira’ah and the ways of
narrators are called riwaayah. In
the case of Imam ‘Aasim, the two chosen were Shu’bah and Hafs because of
their many good qualities and mastery of recitation.
The two narrators of the imam (leader) did not necessarily learn the
exact same way of recitation from the imam, and there are differences in the
two riwaayah for all of the ten qira’aat.
Sometimes the differences are very small, and sometimes they are quite
significant. Both riwaayah for
each imam are authentic ways of recitation transmitted from the Messenger,
When the
recitation of
Wa iyyaakum wa-l-muslimeen. Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh. |
, to us today in chains of transmission
well recorded and documented with great care taken to make sure each Muslim in
the chain lived at the same time as his/her sheikh and met each other, besides
being of the outmost in character.
, it is because he learned it
from Imam ‘Aasim this way and transmitted it to his students, and then it
was transmitted on down in authentic chains until it reached us today this
way.