mosques during the month of Ramadan (1).” Al-Tahāwī related that Abū Hanīfa and his companions used to listen to recitation (2) set to melodies. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam said: “I saw my father, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Yūsuf ibn ‘Amr listening (3) to recitation set to melodies (4).” This was also the view adopted by Ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī.
Those who permitted it said, in the words of Ibn Jarīr (5):
The evidence that the hadith refers to beautifying the voice and to singing as commonly understood—whereby the reciter moves those hearing his recitation to sorrow, just as singing poetry, in the familiar sense of singing, stirs its listeners—is the report transmitted by Sufyān from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salama, from Abū Hurayra, that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:
“Allah has never listened to anything as He has listened to a prophet reciting in beautiful melody (6) from the Quran” (7).
People of discernment understand that melodious recitation can only be produced with the voice, when the reciter beautifies and modulates it. Another wording of this hadith reads: “Never
(1) Also transmitted by Harb al-Kirmānī in his Masā’il (p. 151), Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-Ishrāf ‘alā Manāzil al-Ashrāf (126; Dār Atlas al-Khadrā’ edition), and Ibn ‘Adī in al-Kāmil, in the biography of Sa‘īd ibn al-Marzubān, Abū Sa‘d al-Baqqāl al-A‘war al-‘Absī (5:495). The report is weak.
(2) Manuscript mīm-bā’ reads “al-Qur’ān (the Quran),” as do the printed editions of the works of Ibn Battāl and Ibn al-Mulaqqin.
(3) Manuscripts sād and jīm read “yasma‘ūn (they hear),” as does manuscript jīm in the preceding passage.
(4) The passage “Wa-qāla Muhammad … bi-l-alhān (Muhammad said … set to melodies)” is omitted from manuscript kāf and supplied in the margin of manuscript ‘ayn.
(5) Quoted from Ibn Battāl’s work (10:260–261).
(6) All manuscripts except mīm, qāf, and mīm-bā’ read “hasan al-sawt wa-l-tarannum (beautiful in voice and melodious recitation).”
(7) Transmitted with this wording by ‘Abd al-Razzāq (4169), through Sufyān ibn ‘Uyayna, from ‘Amr ibn Dīnār, from Abū Salama, from Abū Hurayra. Al-Bukhārī (5024) and Muslim (792/232) transmit it through Sufyān ibn ‘Uyayna, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salama, from Abū Hurayra, with the wording “yataghannā bi-l-Qur’ān (recites the Quran melodiously)” instead of “hasan al-tarannum bi-l-Qur’ān (reciting the Quran in a beautiful melody).”