Tilāwah: al-Fajr, 1 – 22

Riwāyah: Khalaf ʿan Ḥamzah

Archive: Colombo, 1441

Note: Part of the following text has been quoted from last year’s article, The Three Duraʿ.

The Recitation

As the nights depart one after the other and the dawn of ʿĀshūrā draws nearer, one is reminded of how the raʾs mubārak of Imām Ḥusayn AS must have recited the Sūrah al-Kahf atop the spear of the accursed Ummayads. What must have been the state of repose for Imām ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbedīn AS after having been inflicted with the incurable wound of seeing Imām Ḥusayn AS being martyred in Karbala? Surely, the departing night of ʿĀshūrā must have appeared before his eyes for all the subsequent dawns of his life.

A sort of malaise enveloped today’s recitation evoking the painful events of the ten nights of Karbalā. Intertwined with the suppleness of rast coupled with nahāwand, today’s recitation was among the best so far. The Sūrah al-Fajr was recited in the riwāyah of Khalaf ʿan Ḥamzah that was preceded with a brief foray into Warsh.

The initial verses saw a display of Warsh in the word يسر which was recited as يسري. The lack of ghunnah on the subsequent lām in قسم لذي and the lack of idghām kabīr in ذلك قسم paved the way for ascertaining the narration as that of Warsh. The same verses were repeated in Ḥafṣ.

The Sūrah was then repeated from the beginning in Khalaf. This continued till the twenty-second verse when the recitation was abruptly terminated since al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Aali Qadr Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) had set foot in the vicinity of the masjid. Whether it was a coincidence; rather a clear sign from providence, that the recitation ended on the following verse :

وَجَآءَ رَبُّكَ وَٱلۡمَلَكُ صَفّٗا صَفّٗا

(and your Lord and the Angels have arrived, rank in rank)

– The Three Duraʿ, 1441

Distinctions of Khalaf

The following audio notes will help the reader recognize the Khalaf distinctions in today’s recitation.

---

Transitions of Sheikh Mustafa Ismail – Chapter 4

The previous article discussed the differences between the maqāms ʿajam and jihārkāh. Readers are advised to go through the earlier articles in order to fully grasp the content that follows.

This article will continue discussing how Sheikh Mustafa Ismail uses the maqām ʿajam with the maqām nahāwand. Carrying on from the previous article, ʿajam is used rarely when compared to jihārkāh. Whenever ʿajam is brought into play, a very small portion of it actually makes it to the field. The reasons have been discussed before.

Today, we will go through five examples that will demonstrate how Sheikh Mustafa Ismail transitions from nahāwand into ʿajam for a brief moment before returning, in his own unique style, back to nahāwand.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5

These examples demonstrate how the Sheikh, when intending to use ʿajam, begins with nahāwand, transitions into ʿajam briefly and returns back to nahāwand.

---