Islam Watch

The Qira’at That Didn’t Make the Cut

20 Recitations You’ve Never Heard Of

Islamic tradition holds that the Quran has been perfectly preserved — not just in text, but in pronunciation, sound, and recitation. Muslims proudly cite the "Qira’at" — canonical modes of Quranic recitation — as evidence of divine precision in oral transmission.

But what’s often hidden from the public is this:

Dozens of Qira’at existed in early Islamic history — and most were rejected, lost, or deliberately suppressed.

The Quran was never a single, fixed oral tradition. It was a chaotic cluster of regional recitations, dialectal variations, and competing versions — and what we call "The Quran" today is the outcome of editorial decisions, not divine preservation.

Let’s examine the 20+ Qira’at that didn’t make the cut — and why their existence destroys the myth of a perfectly preserved Quran.

📖 What Are Qira’at?

Qira’at (قراءات) refers to variant methods of reciting the Quran, based on differences in:

Consonants
Vowels
Word forms
Tense
Grammar
Sometimes even meaning

Each Qira’a is traced through a chain of transmitters to a supposed “master reciter” in early Islam — like Nafi‘, Ibn Kathir, Asim, Hamzah, etc.

Today, only seven or ten Qira’at are officially accepted, depending on the school of thought. But early sources show that dozens more existed — and many of them contradict one another in serious ways.

🧨 Why Did So Many Qira’at Disappear?

Simple: they weren’t politically or theologically acceptable.

Under Caliph Uthman (d. 656), variant codices were burned to create a single standard text. Later, Islamic scholars like Ibn Mujahid (d. 936) tried to “canonize” a handful of Qira’at — and exclude the rest.

This wasn't about divine revelation. It was about institutional control.

📜 Examples of Rejected Qira’at

Here are just a few of the Qira’at that didn’t make the canonical list:

Reciter	Issue
Ibn Muwayyis	Accused of corrupting readings; rejected as unreliable
Al-A‘mash	Had many unique readings; often differed from canonical Qira’at
Abu Ja‘far	Originally marginal; only later added to extended canon
Yahya al-Yazidi	Conflicted with more popular reciters; never canonized
Ibn Mahayṣ	Diverged in verse count and syntax
Abu’l-Harith	Had multiple unique deviations, including verse structure
Salim al-Makki	Known for variant basmalah use and divergent grammar
Al-Kisa’i’s students	Had variant forms even from their teacher’s accepted Qira’a

According to early scholars like Ibn al-Jazari, over 50 named Qira’at were circulating — and only a few were eventually selected.

🧪 What Kind of Variations Are We Talking About?

Not mere pronunciation differences — but meaning-altering divergences.

Example 1: Surah 2:222

Hafs: “Allah loves those who purify themselves” (يَتَطَهَّرُونَ)
Ibn Mas‘ud (rejected qira’a): “Allah loves those who fight hard” (يُطَهِّرُونَ)

Example 2: Surah 9:100

Hafs: “and those who follow them with excellence”
Other qira’at: “and those who followed them excellently” — subtle, but shifts who is being praised

Example 3: Surah 3:146

Hafs: “many prophets fought”
Other Qira’a: “many prophets were killed” — major theological impact

These aren’t accents. These are doctrinal divergences.

🔥 Why This Undermines the Preservation Claim

Islamic apologists claim:

“All Qira’at come from Allah.”

But:

Dozens were discarded by human scholars.
Many were mutually contradictory.
Some were declared shadhdh (aberrant), even if they had chains of transmission.

So the obvious question:

❓ If Allah revealed all these Qira’at… why were most burned, banned, or forgotten?

And if the goal was to preserve a single divine message, why allow:

7 official versions in one tradition
10 in another
14 in extended collections
And 20+ more that were valid in early Islam but now forbidden?

This isn’t preservation. It’s human editing.

🧨 Final Verdict

The myth that the Quran was perfectly preserved in “one reading” falls apart when we realize:

Early Islam had dozens of Quranic versions in circulation
Theological and political forces decided which to keep
The “Quran” today is not the unchanged word of God
It is the surviving result of historical filtering

The Qira’at that didn’t make the cut tell us more about how Islam evolved than the ones that did.

📚 Sources for Further Reading

Ibn Mujahid – Kitab al-Sab‘a fi al-Qira’at
Yasin Dutton – Origins of Islamic Law
Shady Hekmat Nasser – The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Quran
Nicolai Sinai – The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction
Gerd Puin – Studies on the Sana’a Manuscript