The Interpretations of Public Recitation (Qiraat) in the Works of the First Five Centuries of Hijrah and Its Relationship with the Recitation (Qiraat) of the Seven Reciters

Translations such as “Qiraat al-A’mmah”, “Qiraat al-Nas” and “Qiraat al-Jumhur” have been used in some historical reports. Some have provided incorrect interpretations of them by selective quoting. What readings do the mentioned interpretations refer to and in each case do they correspond with the how many readings of several reciters and how much did each of the famous reciters disagree with this general reading? The problem of the current research is that considering the importance of the first centuries of Hijrah and the fame of the seven reciters, the interpretations of public recitations in the first five centuries of Hijrah have been collected and compared with the recitations of the seven reciters. Considering the cases of the use of such general interpretations in the first five centuries of Hijrah shows that these interpretations were never used according to the individual reading of a reciter; Rather, in 95% of cases, these interpretations match at least with the reading of five reciters of the seven reciters and in 98.8% of cases, at least with the reading of four reciters of the seven reciters. This statistic shows that such interpretations either refer to the recitation of the majority of reciters or to the recitation of the majority of people who were subordinate to the reciters. Also, the comparison of the number of objections of each reciter with the cases of using the interpretations of public recitation in the first five centuries of Hijrah, shows that the most opposition to public recitation is in the recitation of the reciters of the city of Kufa (Kisai, Hamzah, and Asim narrated from Hafs) and the least opposition to public recitation is observed in the recitations of Hijaz reciters (Nafi’ and Ibn Kathir).