al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-Ashr

Al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-Ashr is a work on the ten Qur'an readings and their principles by the hadith master Abu al-Khayr Muhammad ibn Muhammad of Damascus, known as Ibn al-Jazari (d. 833 AH). ¹ Its editor Muhammad Ahmad Dahman calls it "the only encyclopaedia in the sciences of tajwid and the readings", saying its author left no question, large or small, in the field unexplained. ^{1 2}

Ibn al-Jazari says that after the early imams the readers multiplied and scattered through the lands; some were masters and some not, disagreement grew and precision declined, so the community's scholars distinguished the well-known from the anomalous by principles and pillars. ³ He then states his criterion: every reading that agrees with Arabic in at least one way, agrees with one of the Uthmanic copies even if only potentially, and has a sound chain is a valid reading that may not be rejected, whether from the seven, the ten or other accepted imams; if any of the three pillars fails it is called weak, anomalous or void, even if from the seven. ³ He says Abu Amr al-Dani stated this explicitly. ³

• Agreement with Arabic in at least one way: he means one of the grammatical possibilities, most eloquent or merely eloquent, agreed or disputed, provided the reading was widespread and received by the imams with a sound chain; he lists readings some grammarians rejected without their rejection counting. ⁴
• Agreement with one of the copies even potentially: he illustrates with what is found in some copies and not others, such as Ibn Amir's readings agreeing with the Syrian copy and Ibn Kathir's with the Meccan, and distinguishes actual from potential agreement, with the example of "malik" and "malik" in al-Fatiha. ⁵
• A sound chain: he means that the reading is transmitted by upright, precise narrators from others like them back to its source, and is well known among the masters of the field. ⁶ See: Must a valid reading be mass-transmitted?

The first printing, corrected and printed by Muhammad Ahmad Dahman at Matba'at al-Tawfiq, Damascus, 5 Jumada II 1345 AH. ¹ He says he established it on four manuscripts: the first, the soundest, copied by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Ghazzi al-Qadiri in 839 AH and marked as collated against a copy in the author's hand; two from the Zahiriyya library in Damascus; a third lent by Shaykh Muhammad al-Halwani, copied by Isma'il al-Amliti in 1100 AH; and a fourth, recent copy. ^{2 7} He thanks Muhammad Kurd Ali, president of the Arab Academy in Damascus. ⁷

The chapters on chains, principles and particular words, and vol. 2 (from PDF p. 515), were not read in this batch.