In his youth he worked as a rawwās (1). He was blond, blue-eyed, of medium stature, stout, wore his garments short, and was masterful in Arabic. The mantle of leadership in Qur’an recitation ultimately settled upon him.

Among those who read the Qur’an to him were the ḥadith scholar Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ, Dāwūd ibn Abī Ṭaybah, Yūsuf al-Azraq, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Qāsim, Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, and many others. He was reliable in the variant letters, an authoritative reference, though we have not encountered any ḥadith transmissions from him.

I have given his biography in full in Akhbār al-Qurrāʾ.

Yūnus said: “His recitation was excellent, his voice melodious. When he read he articulated the hamzah, lengthened the vowels, stressed the doubled consonants, and made the grammatical endings clear; no listener ever tired of him.” It is also said that he completed four full readings before Nāfiʿ in a single month.

He died in Egypt in 197 AH.

83 – Abū Zukayr, Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Qays al-Madanī (T, S, Q, M)

A long-lived ḥadith transmitter, originally from Medina and later from Basra, who served as the tutor of the sons of the Basran governor Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān al-ʿAbbāsī.

He narrated from Zayd ibn Aslam, Abū Ḥāzim al-Aʿraj, and al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd—