to a man and he does not host you, you are allowed to speak of it. (1)
Ibn Dāwūd said in his book al-Sharīʿah: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Nuʿmān narrated to us; Ibn Abī Bazza narrated to us; I heard Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah say, “If I were to pray behind someone who recites according to the reading of Ḥamzah, I would repeat the prayer.”
The same report is firmly established from Ibn Mahdī, and something similar from Ḥammād ibn Zayd.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥuwayṭibī said: I heard Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh say, “Ḥamzah’s recitation is an innovation.”
I say: What they mean by that pertains to matters of delivery—such as the brief pause (sakt), merging the likes of shāʾa and jāʾa, and altering the hamzah—not to the actual consonants found in his reading. This is what appears clear to me, for the man is an authoritative proof, trustworthy in what he transmits. (2)
Maḥmūd ibn Wālan said: I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Bishr, who said: I heard Ibn ʿUyaynah say, “The wrath of Allah is a disease for which there is no cure, and whoever finds sufficiency in Allah, Allah makes the people depend on him.”
(1) Mujahid’s Tafsir, 1/179. ʿAli ibn Abi Talhah relates from Ibn ʿAbbas regarding the verse: “Allah does not like anyone to invoke evil against another except the one who has been wronged; such a person is permitted to supplicate against the one who wronged him, and this is the meaning of ‘except the one who has been wronged.’ Yet should he forbear, that is better for him.”
Al-Hasan al-Basri explained: It concerns a man who is wronged by another; he should not curse him but rather say, “O Allah, help me against him. O Allah, restore my right. O Allah, block him from what he seeks.”
Al-Suddi said: Allah does not love anyone among His creatures to voice evil openly, but if a person has been wronged and responds in proportion to the wrong done to him, he incurs no sin.
See: al-Tabari, 9/343, 350.
(2) Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah, 1/492, reports that Ahmad preferred the Qurʿanic reading of Nafiʿ transmitted by Ismail ibn Jaʿfar; if that was unavailable, he would choose the reading of ʿAsim transmitted by Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash. He also praised the reading of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlaʾ. Among the ten canonical readers he disapproved only of the readings of Hamzah and al-Kisai because of their excessive breaking of vowels, assimilation, affectation, and extended prolongation.