The Rise of Mašriqī and Maġribī Pedagogical Canons of the Qur’anic Reading Traditions ( qirāʾāt ): ca. 300–650 AH / 913–1253 CE

Abstract This study reframes the development of the qirāʾāt discipline between the 4th and 7th centuries AH as the simultaneous emergence of two geographically delimited pedagogical canons – Mašriqī and Maġribī – rather than a single tradition punctuated by the interventions of exceptional individuals. The argument rests on a survey of documented qirāʾāt works composed between the activity of Ibn Muǧāhid (d. 324) and ca. 650 AH, together with the authors who produced them; the results are stored as a database and reproduced in the Appendices. Rigorous statistical analysis demonstrates that an author’s region of origin, far more than scholarly mobility or work format, is the decisive predictor of preference between the Set of 7 and the Set of 10+ Readings. A century-by-century narrative reconstruction traces the divergent regional trajectories and correlates major inflection points with documented geopolitical events. An analysis of pedagogical practice shows the same divergence reproduced in titular vocabulary, in the architecture of paired curricular works, and in distinctive regional orientations toward didactic poetry and grammatical theory. Two appendices catalogue the underlying corpus: Appendix A presents the prosopography of qirāʾāt authors with full biographical references, and Appendix B inventories the works on each Set of Readings.