The Three ʿUshar

(This article is approximately 5 minutes long; you are advised to keep your muṣ-ḥaf open while reading it)

Today’s brief article talks about the riwāyāt and qirāʾāt in the excerpt from Sūrah Luqmān and Sūrah al-Ṭāriq.

The excerpt begins with the seventh and eighth verses of Sūrah Luqmān delivered in the classical jamaʿ method, first Qālūn and then Warsh. The jamaʿ method has several approaches with the most common being the Levantine approach where a qārī begins reciting a verse in Qālūn until he reaches a word where an alternate recitation is available. After repeating the particular word in all available alternate recitations, the qārī continues further until a similar situation is met, preferring to stop at desirable stoppages. The alternate recitations are read in the set order of the ten qurrāʾ (reciters) and their ruwāt (narrators).

The order, as listed in the Ḥirz al-ʿAmānī (al-Shāṭibiyyah) and al-Durrah, is as follows:

The qārī recited the aforesaid verses first in Qālūn without the ṣilah of the mīm of plurality, then in Warsh and then again in Qālūn with the ṣilah on the mīm of plurality. After continuing in Qālūn till verse nine, the qārī repeated the recitation from verse seven in Warsh. The madd al-badal and taqlīl gave away the intricacies of Warsh making way for ample variation further ahead in verse sixteen. However, before that, let’s talk about another of Warsh’s features which he shares with other narrators, too which is to read the first letter in a pair of two consecutive silent letters (iltiqāʾ al-sākinayn) with a ḍammah (paish) when the third letter of the successive word is a ḍammah. For example, while Ḥafṣ recites an-i-shkur in (أنِ اشكر), Warsh recites an-u-shkur and so on. Exceptions are noted for words that, if read alone, would not begin with a ḍammah (paish), for example: قل الروح is not recited by Warsh, or any reciter for that matter, as qul-ur-rūḥ because if the word rūḥ is read without the qul, it would be pronounced al-rūḥ and not ul-rūḥ or il-rūḥ, even when its third letter is a ḍammah. The reason for this can be discussed in a different article.

Moving further ahead, the qārī continued reciting in Warsh till the sixteenth verse when, after a brief foray into Ḥafṣ (al-Shāṭibiyyah), the narration of Qunbul ʿan Ibn Kathīr was introduced where the qārī recited the word يا بني (yā bunaiyya) with a silent letter yāʾ thus: Yā bunai. This is the way Qunbul has recited this word in the seventeenth verse. After repeating in Qālūn again, the qārī returned to Warsh until the twentieth verse, with short retreats into Ḥafṣ, which saw Khalaf ʿan Ḥamzah feature for the first time in this year’s tajweed.

If the saktah at the hamzah after ألم تروا and in الأرض was not enough to betray the introduction of Khalaf, the changing of نِعَمَه to نِعْمَةً certainly was along with the lack of ghunnah in the idghām of the letter wāw in the phrase ظاهرة وَّباطنة.

Today’s excerpt was a sweet amalgamation of some beautiful narrations which enriched the audience multifold in terms of Qurʾānic melody and recitation. This excerpt has opened our minds towards the vastness of the Qurʾān and its sciences with each passing day. We hope to keep learning from such recitations for a very long time to come, InShaAllah.

May Allah Taʿālā keep showing us the glories of our Mawla, al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Aali Qadr Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) everyday and may He prolong our Mawla’s authority till the day of judgement. Ameen.