al-Nashr fi al-Qiraat al-Ashr
- Author died
- 833 AH
- Editions
- Al-Matba'ah al-Tijariyyah al-Kubra [photoreproduced by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah]
al-Nashr fi al-Qiraat al-Ashr (The Publication Concerning the Ten Canonical Readings) is a major compendium on the ten canonical Quranic recitations by the Syrian scholar Ibn al-Jazari (751–833 AH / 1350–1429 CE) . It serves as the primary reference work for the transmission pathways, phonetic rules, and text-critical criteria of the ten readings (al-Qira'at al-'Ashr) .
Composition and Purpose
Ibn al-Jazari began composing the work in early Rabi al-Awwal 799 AH (1396 CE) in Bursa and completed it in Dhu al-Hijjah of the same year . He was prompted to write it after observing a decline in scholarly engagement with the broader science of recitation, noting that many students and teachers had confined valid recitation almost entirely to what was preserved in Abu 'Amr al-Dani's al-Taysir and al-Shatibi's versification Hirz al-Amani (al-Shatibiyya), thereby neglecting other well-attested, authentic readings .
To re-establish the broader corpus of recitations, Ibn al-Jazari set out to document all authentic, mass-transmitted variations, articulating the standard three conditions for a reading's validity: conformity to Arabic grammar (even in one acceptable facet), conformity to the orthography of one of the Uthmanic codices (even probabilistically), and an authentic chain of transmission (isnad) .
Scope, Sources, and Structure
The work is organized in two volumes, encompassing the recitations of the ten canonical readers: Nafi al-Madani, Ibn Kathir al-Makki, Abu Amr ibn al-Ala, Ibn Amir al-Shami, Asim ibn Abi al-Najud, Hamzah al-Kufi, al-Kisai, Abu Jafar Yazid ibn al-Qaqa, Yaqub al-Hadrami, and Khalaf ibn Hisham .
For each of the ten readers, Ibn al-Jazari restricted his primary framework to two transmitters (rawis), two primary transmission paths (turuq) per transmitter, and two further regional sub-paths (Eastern and Western, Egyptian and Iraqi), yielding eighty directly verified fundamental paths, which branch into nearly one thousand documented transmission routes . The text draws directly on transmission chains documented from thirty-six (or thirty-seven) primary sourcebooks, incorporating insights examined across roughly ninety treatises on recitations, as well as hadith and linguistic literature .
The structure of al-Nashr encompasses:
- Detailed documentation of his chains of transmission connecting his own recitation and teachers back to the classical authors and the ten master readers .
- General principles of articulation and performance (usul), including the articulation points of letters (makharij al-huruf), phonetic attributes (sifat), assimilation rules (idgham), rules for the hamzah, lengthening and shortening (madd and qasr), vocalic bending and opening (al-fath wa-l-imalah), Quranic orthography (rasm), and stopping and beginning (al-waqf wa-l-ibtida') .
- Surah-by-surah variant readings (farsh al-huruf) across the entire Quranic text .
Reception and Related Works
al-Nashr is widely regarded by specialists as the definitive and most comprehensive manual on the ten readings, to the extent that later scholars stated that no transmission of recitation was considered authoritative after its appearance without reference to it .
Ibn al-Jazari produced two companion works based directly on al-Nashr:
- Taqrib al-Nashr fi al-Qiraat al-Ashr, an abridgment in one volume omitting the lengthy introductory chains and technical dissertations to present the core rules of usul and farsh .
- Tayyibat al-Nashr fi al-Qiraat al-Ashr, a didactic poem of one thousand verses in the rajaz meter summarizing the contents and transmission paths of al-Nashr, completed in Anatolia in Sha'ban 799 AH .
The poem and the original work became the focus of major commentaries and editorial treatises (tahrirat), including commentaries on the poem by the author's son Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Jazari (d. c. 835 AH) and Abu al-Qasim al-Nuwayri (d. 857 AH), as well as pathway-verification treatises such as Tahrir al-Nashr by Mustafa al-Izmiri (d. 1155 AH / 1743 CE) and al-Rawd al-Nadir by Muhammad al-Mutawalli .
A standard two-volume printed edition of al-Nashr was prepared under the supervision of Ali Muhammad al-Dabba in Cairo and subsequently reprinted and photographed by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya in Beirut .
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