Variant Qur’anic Readings Before and After Ibn Mujāhid

Abstract Ibn Mujāhid (d. Baghdad, 324/936) famously surveyed variant qur’anic readings ( qirāʾāt ) from seven earlier specialists. Did he speak for a gathering consensus or was his just another idiosyncratic treatment of the problem (but unusually influential)? Comparison with earlier treatments of the readings by the grammarians and philologists al-Farrāʾ, al-Akhfash, Quṭrub, Abū ʿUbayd, Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī (in quotation), and Ibn Qutaybah in the ninth century shows some evidence of a growing preference for accepting a defined set of readings but little agreement as to whose readings would qualify. Comparisons with the treatments of al-Ṭabarī, al-Māturīdī, al-Zajjāj, and al-Naḥḥās in the tenth century mainly shows continuity with the diverse views of the ninth. Al-Ṭabarī is distinguished by a strong emphasis on consensus to determine whether a reading is acceptable or not. Ibn Mujāhid’s chief innovation seems to be that he accepted almost every reading of his chosen seven, whereas previous students of the readings had expressly preferred some readings to others. Ibn al-Nadīm seems to be the earliest writer to interpret Ibn Mujāhid’s choice of seven as excluding other readings.