Hafs (Abū Amr Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Abi Dawud al-Asadī al-Kūfī (, 706–796 AD; 90–180

Anno Hegirae The Hijri year () or era () is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib (now Medina) in 622 CE. This event, known as the Hij ...

)), according to Islamic tradition, was one of the primary transmitters of one of the seven canonical methods of Qur'an recitation (''

qira'at In Islam, (pl. ; ) refers to the ways or fashions that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is recited. More technically, the term designates the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with rec ...

''). His method via his teacher

Aasim ibn Abi al-Najud Abu Bakr ‘Aasim Ibn Abi al-Najud al-'Asadi (died 745 CE / 127 AH),Shady Hekmat NasserIbn Mujahid and the Canonization of the Seven Readings p. 57. Taken from ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and t ...

has become the most popular method across the majority of the

Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

.Bewley, Aishah
"The Seven Qira'at of the Qur'an"
, ''Aisha Bewley's Islamic Home Page'' In addition to being the student of Aasim, Hafs was also his son-in-law.Peter G. Riddell
Early Malay Qur'anic exegical activity
p. 164. Taken from ''Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses''. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2001. Having been born in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, Hafs eventually moved to

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

where he popularized his father-in-law's recitation method. Eventually, Hafs' recitation of Aasim's method was made the official method of Egypt, having been formally adopted as the standard Egyptian printing of the Qur'an under the auspices of

Fuad I of Egypt Fuad I ( ''Fu’ād al-Awwal''; 26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936) was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and the Sudan. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, he became Sultan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Hu ...

in 1923. The majority of copies of the Quran today follow the reading of Hafs. In

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

there is a bigger tendency to follow the reading of

Warsh Abu Sa'id Uthman Ibn Sa‘id al-Qebṭi, better known as Warsh (110-197AH), was a significant figure in the history of Quranic recitation (''qira'at''), the canonical methods of reciting the Qur'an. Alongside Qalun, he was one of the two prima ...

Hafs recitation

Of all the canonical recitation traditions, only the Kufan tradition of Hafs included the bismillah as a separate verse in

Chapter (surah) 1 Al-Fatiha () is the first chapter () of the Quran. It consists of seven verses (') which consist of a prayer for guidance and mercy. Al-Fatiha is recited in Muslim obligatory and voluntary prayers, known as ''salah''. The primary literal mea ...

. In the 10thC, in his ''Kitāb al-sabʿa fī l-qirāʾāt'', Ibn Mujahid mentioned the seven readings of the Quran which originally were all recited by the Prophet of Islam to his followers. Three of their readers hailed from

Kufa Kufa ( ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates, Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya ...

, a centre of early Islamic learning. The three Kufan readers were Al-Kisa'i, the Kufan;

Hamzah az-Zaiyyat Abu ‘Imarah Hamzah Ibn Habib al-Zayyat al-Taymi, better known as Hamzah az-Zaiyyat (80-156AH),Edward Sell (priest), Edward SellThe Faith of Islam pg. 341. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2013 reprint. Muhammad Ghoniem and MSM SaifullahThe Ten Rea ...

; and

. It is, alongside the Hafs 'an 'Asim tradition which represents the recitational tradition of

, one of the two major oral transmission of the Quran in the Muslim World.Ibn Warraq, ''Which Koran? Variants, Manuscript, Linguistics'', pg. 45. Prometheus Books, 2011. The influential standard Quran of Cairo that was published in 1924 is based on Hafs 'an ʻAsim's recitation.

Chain of Transmission

Imam Hafs ibn Suleiman ibn al-Mughirah al-Asadi al-Kufi learned from

al-Kufi al-Tabi'i from Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami from

Uthman ibn Affan Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until Assassination of Uthman, his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable Companions of the Prophet, companion of ...

Ali ibn Abu Talib Ali ibn Abi Talib (; ) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Born to Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib an ...

, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and Zaid ibn Thabit from Muhammad (SAW).

References

{{Authority control 706 births 796 deaths 8th-century Arab people Quranic readings People from Mecca People from Baghdad People from Kufa Iraqi Sunni Muslims

Hafs recitation

Chain of Transmission

See also

Ten readers and transmitters

References