Quran Reading
Mark Reed
I'm building a Quran reading option in an React-native app. I have some troubles finding the right approche concerning using pdf or png images.I have tried react-native-pdf but i have some issues. The png option gives the best rendering result in 'PORTRAIT' but in 'LANDSCAPE' the image cant be scrolled vertically to see the entire image; ive tried scrollView inside FlatList.
The maṣḥaf Quran that is in "general use" throughout almost all the Muslim world today[Note 7] is a 1924 Egyptian edition based on the Qira'at "reading of Ḥafṣ on the authority of `Asim" (Ḥafṣ being the Rawi, or "transmitter", and `Asim being the Qari or "reader").[16]
It was during the period of the Successors [i.e. the generation of Muslims succeeding the companions of Muhammad ] and shortly thereafter that exceptional reciters became renowned as teachers of Qur'anic recitation in cities like Makkah, Madina, Kufa, Basra, and greater Syria (al-Sham). They attracted students from all over the expanding Muslim state and their modes of recitations were then attached to their names. It is therefore commonly said that [for example] he recites according to the reading of Ibn Kathir or Nafi'; this, however, does not mean that these reciters [Ibn Kathir or Nafi] are the originators of these recitations, their names have been attached to the mode of recitation simply because their rendition of the Prophetic manner of recitation was acclaimed for authenticity and accuracy and their names became synonymous with these Qur'anic recitations. In fact, their own recitation goes back to the Prophetic mode of recitation through an unbroken chain.[21][3]
After Muhammad's death there were many qira'at, from which 25 were described by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam two centuries after Muhammad's death.[citation needed] The seven qira'at readings which are currently notable were selected in the fourth century by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid (died 324 AH, 936 CE) from prominent reciters of his time, three from Kufa and one each from Mecca, Medina, and Basra and Damascus.[23] Later, three more recitations were canonized for ten. (The first seven readers named for a qiraa recitation died un/readers of the recitations lived in the second and third century of Islam. (Their death dates span from 118 AH to 229 AH).
Ibn al-Jazari (1350 - 1429 CE) wrote two large poems about qira'at and tajwid. One was Durrat Al-Maʿniyah (الدرة المعنية), in the readings of three major reciters, added to the seven in the Shatibiyyah, making it ten. The other is Tayyibat al-Nashr (طيبة النشر), which is 1014 lines on the ten major reciters in great detail, of which he also wrote a commentary.
The qira'at that do not meet these conditions are called shaadhdh (anomalous/irregular/odd). The other recitations reported from companions that differ from the Uthmānic codex may represent an abrogated or abandoned ḥarf, or a recitation containing word alterations for commentary or for facilitation for a learner. It is not permissible to recite the shaadhdh narrations in prayer, but they can be studied academically.[3] The most well documented companion reading was that of Abdullah ibn Masud. Dr. Ramon Harvey notes that Ibn Mas'ud's reading continued in use and was even taught as the dominant reading in Kufa for at least a century after his death and has shown that some of his distinctive readings continued to play a role in Hanafi fiqh.[31] In 1937, Arthur Jeffery produced a compilation of variants attested in Islamic literature for a number of companion readings.[32] More recently, Dr. Abd al-Latif al-Khatib made a much more comprehensive compilation of qira'at variants called Mu'jam al-Qira'at. This work is widely cited by academic scholars and includes ten large volumes listing variants attested in Islamic literature for the canonical readings and their transmissions, the companions, and other non-canonical reciters, mainly of the first two centuries.[33] The process by which certain readings became canonical and others regarded as shaadhdh has been extensively studied by Dr. Shady Nasser.[34]
According to one study (by Christopher Melchert) based on a sample of the ten qira'at/readings, the most common variants (ignoring certain extremely common pronunciation issues) are non-dialectal vowel differences (31%), dialectal vowel differences (24%), and consonantal dotting differences (16%).[13] (Other academic works in English have become available that list and categorise the variants in the main seven canonical readings. Two notable and open access works are those of Nasser[43] and Abu Fayyad.)[44]
The first set of examples below compares the most widespread reading today of Hafs from Asim with that of Warsh from Nafi, which is widely read in North Africa. All have differences in the consonantal/diacritical marking (and vowel markings), but only one adds a consonant/word to the rasm: "then it is what" v. "it is what", where a "fa" consonant letter is added to the verse.
Although both Qira'at (recitations) and Ahruf (styles) refer to readings of the Quran, they are not the same. Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (and Ammar Khatib and Nazir Khan) notes three general explanations, described by Ibn al-Jazari, of what happened to the Ahruf.[54] One group of scholars, exemplified by Ibn Hazm, held that Uthman preserved all seven ahruf. Another group, exemplified by Al-Tabari, held that Uthman preserved only one of the seven, unifying the ummah under it.[Note 10] Finally, Ibn al-Jazari held what he said was the majority view, which is that the orthography of the Uthmanic copies accommodated a number of ahruf -- "some of the differences of the aḥruf, not all of them".[60][Note 11]
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (and others) point out that Umar and Hisham belonged to the same tribe (the Quraysh), and members of the same tribe and would not have used different pronunciation. Supporters of the theory reply that Hisham may have been taught the Quran by a Companion of the Prophet from a different tribe. Nevertheless, Ghamidi questions the hadith which claim "variant readings", on the basis of Quranic verses (87:6-7, 75:16-19), the Quran was compiled during Muhammad's lifetime and questions the hadith which report its compilation during Uthman's reign.[68] Since most of these narrations are reported by Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Imam Layth Ibn Sa'd wrote to Imam Malik:[68][69]
Abu 'Ubayd Qasim Ibn Sallam (died 224 AH) reportedly selected twenty-five readings in his book. The seven readings which are currently notable were selected by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid (died 324 AH, 936 CE) at the end of the third century from prominent reciters of his time, three from Kufa and one each from Mecca, Medina, and Basra and Damascus.[23] It is generally accepted that although their number cannot be ascertained, every reading is Quran which has been reported through a chain of narration and is linguistically correct. Some readings are regarded as mutawatir, but their chains of narration indicate that they are ahad (isolate) and their narrators are suspect in the eyes of rijal authorities.[68]
Contrasting with the view of early scholars that the readings included human interpretation and errors, Nasser writes, "This position changed drastically in the later periods, especially after the 5th/11th century where the canonical Readings started to be treated as divine revelation, i.e. every single variant reading in the seven and ten eponymous Readings was revealed by God to Muhammad."[78]
Doctrine holds that the readings that make up each of the canonical Qira'at can be traced by a chain of transmission (like hadith) back to the Prophet Muhammad, and even that they were transmitted by chains so numerous that their authenticity is beyond doubt (mutawatir). In theory, evidence of the canonical Qira'at should be found among the oldest Quranic manuscripts.
The view of some scholars that the differences, not just the agreement, between the canonical qira'at were transmitted mutawatir was a topic of disagreement among scholars. Shady Nasser notes that "all the Eponymous Readings were transmitted via single strands of transmissions (āḥād) between the Prophet and the seven Readers, which rendered the tawātur of these Readings questionable and problematic." He observes that qira'at manuals were often silent on the isnad (chain of transmission) between the eponymous reader and the Prophet, documenting instead the formal isnads from the manual author to the eponymous reader. Like Ibn Mujahid, often they separately included various biographical accounts connecting the reading back to the Prophet, while later manuals developed more sophisticated isnads.[80] Nasser concludes that "the dominant and strongest opinion among the Muslim scholars holds to the non-tawātur of the canonical Readings".[81] Marijn van Putten has noted similarly that "The view that the transmission of the Quran is tawātur seems to develop some significant time after the canonization of the readers".[82]
In his book on Quranic Arabic and the reading traditions (open access in pdf format), Marijn van Putten puts forth a number of arguments such that the qira'at are not purely oral recitations, but also to an extent are readings dependent on the rasm, the ambiguities of which they interpreted in different ways, and that the readings accommodated the standardized rasm rather than the other way around.[82]
Contrary to popular conceptions, the Qur'an was not originally codified in Classical Arabic, instead originating in the Old Hijazi dialect of Arabic. Linguist and Quranic manuscript expert Dr. Marijn van Putten has written a number of papers on the Arabic evident in the Qur'anic consonantal text (QCT). Van Putten brings internal linguistic arguments (internal rhymes) to show that this dialect had lost the hamza (except at the end of words spoken in the canonical readings with a final alif), not just in the orthography of the written text, as is well established, but even in the original spoken performance of the Qur'an. He also notes Chaim Rabin's (d. 1996) observation of "several statements by medieval Arabic scholars that many important Hijazis, including the prophet, would not pronounce the hamza" and quotes his point that "the most celebrated feature of the Hijaz dialect is the disappearance of the hamza, or glottal stop". The canonical readings on the other hand use hamza much more widely and have considerable differences in its usage.[91] In another paper, Van Putten and Professor Phillip Stokes argue, using various types of internal evidence and supported by early manuscripts and inscriptions of early dialects found in Arabia, that unlike the dialects found in the canonical readings, the spoken language behind the QCT "possessed a functional but reduced case system, in which cases marked by long vowels were retained, whereas those marked by short vowels were mostly lost".[92] Van Putten also reconstructs the spoken dialect represented by the QCT to have treated nouns ending with feminine -at as diptotes (without nunation) rather than the triptotic feminine endings spoken in Qur'an recitations today.[93]
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