are its guardian.” [Al-Ḥijr 15:9]

The first person to claim that Yaʿqūb’s reading (ḥarf) was irregular (shādh) was Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī; leading authorities, however, disagreed with him, so the matter as a whole has become a recently arisen point of dispute—Allah knows best.

Yes, those who transmitted the reading from Yaʿqūb include Abū Ḥafṣ al-Fallās, Bundār, Abū Qilābah al-Raqāshī, Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm Shādhān, al-Kudaymī (1), and many others besides them.

His brother Aḥmad b. Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī was older than he.

The distinguished scholar Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī said: “Yaʿqūb was the most knowledgeable man we ever met concerning the variant letters and divergences of the Qur’an, their underlying causes, their schools, and the schools of grammar” (2).

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal said: “He is truthful” (3).

Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-ʿIjlī composed the following verses in praise of Yaʿqūb:

His father was a master-reciter, and so was his grandsire;
Among the reciters, Yaʿqūb is a radiant star.
His unique path is pure correctness, its very essence;
Who is his equal in his day—or until the Gathering? (4)