Study of the lack of auditory versions of holy quotations and the induced multi-reading

Due to the specific orthographic features of Arabic, a piece of writing in that language may be pronounced differently. This is linguistically referred to as ‘reading transformation’. In the case of documented Hadiths (holy quotations), correct understanding of meanings depends on reading the texts as intended by the original author. This fact, if ignored, as it sometimes is, leads to mistaken understanding of certain religious texts. Different readings of the same text often lead to contradictory meanings and arguments on whether to accept the text or reject it. This is why it has traditionally been preferable to receive a Hadith orally rather than in a written form. This paper aims at the factors that affect different readings of written Hadiths. Indeed, it typologically introduces the factors that create misunderstanding. The study is a descriptive-analytical one, focusing on several example Hadiths that suffer from a lack of auditory versions. The results indicate that the most critical factors involved in reading transformation are ‘lack of cohesive devices’, ‘creating junctions when reading’, ‘lack of vowel markers’, ‘neglecting the stock collocations or word combinations’, and ‘the derivative nature of Arabic’. Careful consideration of these factors is specifically highlighted for dealing with the words quoted from Imams.