A Review of the Rijāl Status of the Last Transmitter in the Transmission Chain of the “Iqra’ Kamā Yaqra’ al-Nās” Narration

One of the narrations relied upon by the qur’ānic sciences scholars, Islamic jurisprudents, Qur’ān interpreters, and Qur’ān recitation researchers in their studies is the narration “Iqra’ kamā yaqra’ al-nās”. The text and transmission chain of this narration has been accepted by many scholars. Nonetheless, there are some who have not deemed its transmission chain to be perfectly sound due to the presence of a weak transmitter named “Sālim b. Abī Salama.” Of course, this narration exists in narration sources along with similar transmitter names “Sālim b. Salama” and “Sālim Abī Salama.” Since this narration is one of the important narrations used in Islamic jurisprudence, qur’ānic sciences, Qur’ān interpretation, and Qur’ān recitation, an inspection of the soundness of its chain of transmission seems to be necessary. In particular, it has been stated that the teknonym of “Sālim b. Salama” is Abū Khadīja and Abū Salama, and these two teknonyms have also been used for “Sālim b. Mukarram”, and in some narrations, the teknonym Abū Khadīja has been used without mentioning the name “Sālim b. Salama” or “Sālim b. Mukarram.” This might suggest that “Sālim b. Salama” is the same as “Sālim b. Mukarram.” Therefore, based on the interpretations made about these narration transmitters in the Rijāl sources, the narrations under all these four transmitter names were extracted from the narration sources and were examined with regard to the narration transmitter, narration text, the narrated person, and the narration sources so that the last narration transmitter could be found and the soundness or weakness of the narration could be decided upon. The results of the examination of the narration text, the narrated person, and the narration sources indicated that “Sālim b. Salama” and “Sālim Abī Salama” were the misspellings of “Sālim b. Abī Salama”, and this person is different from “Sālim b. Mukarram” who has narrations on the Qur’ān interpretation and the Islamic jurisprudence.