me this Sūra. Then I wished to immediately forbid him, but allowed him to read to the end. Then I seized his dress, and took him to the prophet, and said, Oh prophet of God, I heard this man reading Sūra Furqān in another way; he read it differently from what you taught me. Then the prophet said to me, 'Let him go.' He then told him to read. He then read in the manner which [ had heard. Upon that the prophet said, 'It has been revealed in this way.' Again he said to me, 'Do you read also.' Then when I had read, he said, 'It was revealed in this way also; the Qurān was revealed in seven readings, read it in the way which is easy to you'."
There are many traditions relating to this seven-fold reading of the Qurān, and Muhammadan scholars have tried in various ways to explain its significance, but without success. The differences which existed in these seven different readings of the Qurān were certainly very serious; for in a tradition recorded by Nisai we learn that ʿUmr boldly accused Hishām of falsehood, and asserted that he had read many words in his recitation of the Qurān which he had never learned from the prophet. In another tradition, recorded by Muslim, we learn that Ibn-Kāb, one of the most famous of the Qurān readers, heard two men reciting the Namāz in a reading different from his own. Upon reference being made to the prophet, the latter pronounced both correct, "upon which," says Ibn-Kāb, "such a revolt arose in my heart as had not existed since the times of ignorance."
From these various traditions it is clear that even during the lifetime of the prophet the Qurān was being read in various mutually conflicting ways. So grave were the differences that quarrels soon arose; for the inhabitants of Hims stood by the reading of Al-Miqdād-ibn-al-Aswad; the Kūfites by that of Ibn-Masʿūd; the Busrites by that of Abu-Mūsa, and so on. But it would be a mistake to suppose that these differences simply consisted in the recitation of the Qurān in the various
