al-Dānī's al-Taysīr fī al-qirāʾāt al-sabʿ: A Translation with Linguistic Commentary

Abstract

Al-Taysīr fī al-Qirāʾāt al-Sabʿ by the 11th century Andalusian scholar ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Dānī is one of the most influential descriptions of the seven reading traditions of the Qurʾān. It is the work on which the later didactic poem by al-Šāṭibī was based, which still stands as the basis for the teaching of the reading traditions among Muslim specialists. This book makes the highly technical genre of the Qurʾānic reading traditions accessible through a rigorous translation of al-Dānī’s work with extensive elucidating footnotes. Besides a full translation of the text, the book also includes an in-depth introduction, which lays out the history of the reading traditions, details of their transmission, the technical terminology of the Qirāʾāt genre, and summarises the linguistic principles of the reading traditions using modern linguistic terminology and illustrative tables.