—namely, the seven canonical readings as set forth in al-Dani’s al-Taysir and al-Shatibi’s Hirz al-Amani—under the tutelage of Ibn Jibril al-Misri, who had settled in Damascus (1).

It was not long before al-Dhahabi had gained a solid mastery of the variant readings, their principles, and their detailed issues, even though he was still a youth of no more than twenty. In his biographical entry on the Chief Judge Shihab al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil al-Khuʿi, later al-Dimashqi al-Shafiʿi (d. 693 AH), he writes: “I sat before him, and he questioned me about several matters related to the variant readings. By Allah’s grace I answered him, those present attested to this in the licence he wrote for me, and he granted me authorization for his narrations.” (2)

Yet he continued to press ahead in this branch of learning. In 691 AH he copied al-Muqaddimah fi ’t-Tajwid by its author, the master-reciter Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Jawhar al-Talaʿfari (d. 696 AH) (3). He also recited a complete khatmah of the seven readings to Majd al-Din Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad al-Mursi, resident in Damascus (d. 718 AH) (4); performed the collective khatmah before the Shaykh of the Reciters in Baalbek, Muwaffaq al-Din (d. 695 AH) (5); and

he likewise studied the seven readings with the reciter Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Halabi (d. 700 AH), who held prominent teaching posts at the ʿAdiliyya madrasa and in the Umayyad Mosque (6).

Furthermore, he read the book al-Mubhj fi’l-Qiraʾat al-Sabʿ (7) by Sibt al-Shaykh Abu Mansur al-Khayyat al-Baghdadi, al-Sabʿa by Ibn Mujahid, and other works under