What Are the Seven Ahruf of the Qur’an, and What Is the Difference Between Them and the Ten Qira’at?
Question: The questioner says: The Messenger ﷺ said that the Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf. What does the word “harf” originally mean, what is intended by the seven ahruf, and what is the difference between them and the ten qira’at?
Summary:
It is authentically reported from Ibn Abbas رضي الله عنهما, from the Prophet ﷺ, that the Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf. He ﷺ said: “Jibril taught me to recite according to one harf, so I kept returning to him and asking him for more, and he continued increasing it for me until it reached seven ahruf.” Narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim. The word harf in its original linguistic usage carries several meanings, including: a manner, a way, a side, and an edge. From this is the statement of Allah تعالى: “And among the people is he who worships Allah upon a harf.” [Al-Hajj: 11] Al-Qurtubi رحمه الله said in his Tafsir: “It was also said: ‘upon a harf,’ meaning upon one manner, which is that he worships Him in times of ease but not in times of hardship.” Meaning: upon a manner and condition that is not firm. As for the seven ahruf mentioned in the hadith, the scholars differed greatly concerning their precise reality. There is no authentic hadith that explains the seven ahruf to us one by one. Among the strongest views is that the seven ahruf are seven forms of variation in recitation. Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله held that the variations found among the qira’at return to seven types of variation and do not go beyond them, while remaining free of contradiction and inconsistency. Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله said: “I continued to find this hadith difficult to understand, reflecting upon it and examining it deeply for more than thirty years, until Allah opened for me what may be correct, if Allah wills. That is that I examined the qira’at—the authentic, irregular, weak, and rejected among them—and found that their variations return to seven types of difference which they do not go beyond.” Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله said in Al-Nashr fi al-Qira’at al-Ashr: “We only lengthened this chapter because it has reached us that some people who possess no knowledge believe that the authentic qira’at are only those transmitted from these seven reciters, or that the seven ahruf which the Prophet ﷺ referred to are the recitations of these seven. Rather, it has become widespread among many ignorant people that the authentic qira’at are those contained in Al-Shatibiyyah and Al-Taysir, and that these are what is referred to in his ﷺ statement: ‘The Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf.’ This has gone so far that some of them describe anything not found in these two books as irregular, and many of them describe anything not transmitted from these seven reciters as irregular, whereas much of what is not found in Al-Shatibiyyah and Al-Taysir, and is transmitted from reciters other than these seven, may be more authentic than much of what is contained in them. What caused these people to fall into this confusion is that they heard: ‘The Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf,’ and they heard of ‘the seven qira’at,’ so they assumed that these seven were the seven being referred to.”
Answer:
Firstly: What does the word “harf” originally mean?
The word harf in Arabic has several usages, and its original meaning indicates an edge, a side, or a manner.
From the Qur'an:
- [Al-Hajj: 11]
“And among the people is he who worships Allah upon a harf. If good comes to him, he is reassured by it, but if a trial befalls him, he turns back on his face.”
Imam al-Qurtubi رحمه الله said in his Tafsir regarding the statement of Allah تعالى: “And among the people is he who worships Allah upon a harf.” [Al-Hajj: 11] “It was also said: ‘upon a harf,’ meaning upon one manner, which is that he worships Him in times of ease but not in times of hardship.” [p. 18] Therefore, the word harf in the hadith of the seven ahruf does not mean a letter of the alphabet, such as alif, ba, or ta. Rather, what is intended is a manner from among the manners of recitation.
Secondly: The evidence that the Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf
From the Sunnah:
- Narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim.Ibn Abbas رضي الله عنهما narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“Jibril taught me to recite according to one harf, so I kept returning to him and asking him for more, and he continued increasing it for me until it reached seven ahruf.”
The hadith states directly: “Jibril taught me to recite according to one harf ... until it reached seven ahruf.” This clearly indicates that the seven ahruf were revealed from Allah and were not variations introduced by the reciters after the Prophet ﷺ. It is also established from the story of Umar ibn al-Khattab and Hisham ibn Hakim رضي الله عنهما that each of them recited Surah Al-Furqan in a manner different from the other. After the Prophet ﷺ listened to both of them, he said: “It was revealed in this manner.” Then he said: “Indeed, this Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf.” Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله mentioned this hadith at the beginning of Al-Nashr.
Thirdly: What is meant by the seven ahruf? This is one of the issues concerning which the scholars differed greatly. Therefore, we should not state with certainty a detailed explanation of the seven ahruf as though the Prophet ﷺ had named each of the seven individually for us, because this has not been authentically established. However, among the strong views held by the verifying scholars is: What is intended is seven forms of variation in the recitation of the Quran which Allah تعالى revealed as an expansion and a facilitation for the Ummah. These variations are variations of diversity, not variations of contradiction. Among the examples that help bring the meaning closer, without claiming that they constitute an explanation of all seven ahruf, is that the wording may differ while the meaning remains close.
From the Scholars:
- Al-Baqillani رحمه الله said:
In the chapter concerning the explanation of the languages, manners, and seven recitations which we have said are intended by the statement, “The Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf”
- Al-Baqillani رحمه الله said:
“The text of the Messenger did not indicate all of their specific forms or the categories of their variations...”
- He then said:
“We are therefore required to say in general that the Quran was revealed upon seven manners ... even if the specific recitations, manners, and languages are not known.”
- Shaykh Ibn Baz رحمه الله also said when explaining the difference between them and the qira’at:
Are the seven qira’at the seven ahruf? “No, they are other than the seven ahruf.” He mentioned that the meanings of the ahruf are close to one another and gave examples such as: “Come,” “Approach,” and “Come here.”
Therefore, the safer wording is to say: The seven ahruf are seven manners upon which Allah revealed the Quran as a facilitation for the Ummah. Differences occurred between them in the manners of recitation without contradiction. As for precisely defining their detailed reality, the scholars differed concerning that.
The ten qira’at are something else. “They are the ten mutawatir recitations of the Quran, transmitted through authentic, connected chains of narration from the ten Imams of qira’ah.” They are: Nafi, Ibn Kathir, Abu Amr, Ibn Amir, Asim, Hamzah, Al-Kisa’i, Abu Jafar, Yaqub, and Khalaf. A reciter such as Asim did not invent the qira’ah. Rather, he received it through a chain of transmission from those before him, until the chain reaches the Companions رضي الله عنهم, from the Prophet ﷺ.
From the Scholars:
- For this reason, Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله said regarding the criteria for an authentic qira’ah:
“Every recitation that agrees with the Arabic language, even in one acceptable manner; agrees with one of the Uthmanic mushafs, even by possibility; and has an authentic chain of transmission, is an authentic recitation.”
Fifthly: Are the seven ahruf the seven qira’at? No. This is a very important point, because the fact that both involve the number seven is what caused some people to fall into error.
From the Scholars:
- Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله said in Al-Nashr, warning against this understanding:
He mentioned that some people thought: “The seven ahruf which the Prophet ﷺ referred to are the recitations of these seven.” He then explained that the source of the confusion was that they heard: “The Quran was revealed upon seven ahruf,” and they also heard: “the seven qira’at,” so they assumed that these were those.
Indeed, the selection of seven famous reciters occurred a long time after the era of Prophethood. Therefore, the number of these reciters has no connection to the statement of the Prophet ﷺ: “seven ahruf.”
Sixthly: What, then, is the relationship between the seven ahruf and the ten qira’at? The matter can be explained approximately as follows: The seven ahruf = the manners upon which Allah revealed the Quran during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. The ten qira’at = the transmitted ways and manners of recitation that have reached us through chains of narration from the Imams of qira’ah. They consist of those manners of recitation which were authentically established, preserved through transmission, and conformed to the written form of the Uthmanic mushaf.
From the Scholars:
- For this reason, Ibn al-Jazari رحمه الله said concerning an authentic qira’ah:
“Rather, it is from the seven ahruf upon which the Quran was revealed.”
Therefore, we do not say: The first harf = the qira’ah of Nafi, the second harf = the qira’ah of Ibn Kathir, the third harf = the qira’ah of Asim... This is false. Rather, a single qira’ah may contain forms that return to what remains of the ahruf, and more than one reciter may share the same form.
Conclusion: The seven ahruf are not the letters of the alphabet, nor are they the seven qira’at or the ten qira’at. Rather, they are seven manners upon which Allah revealed the Quran as a facilitation for the Ummah. The scholars differed concerning precisely defining their exact reality, and no authentic hadith has been established from the Prophet ﷺ enumerating these seven manners one by one. As for the ten qira’at, they are the authentically established recitations transmitted through chains of narration from the ten Imams of qira’ah. Each qira’ah is not an independent harf from among the seven ahruf. The most precise brief wording that can be taught to the questioner is: The seven ahruf are manners upon which Allah revealed the Quran as a facilitation for the Ummah, whereas the ten qira’at are established recitations transmitted through chains of narration from the Imams of qira’ah, containing what has been authentically established and preserved from the manners of recitation. Therefore, the ten qira’at are not the seven ahruf.
And Allah knows best.
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