a contradiction. Rather, as ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “Whoever disbelieves in a single harf of it has disbelieved in all of it.”

As for cases in which the wording and meaning remain the same and only the manner of pronunciation varies—such as the treatment of hamzah, vowel lengthening, vowel inclination, transferring vowel sounds, distinct articulation, assimilation, reduced articulation of vowels, and pronouncing lām and rā lightly or emphatically, and similar matters known as the general principles of the readings—the absence of contradiction or opposition is even clearer and more evident here than in cases where the wording or meaning varies. These different ways of pronouncing an expression do not prevent it from remaining one and the same expression. Nor are they counted among cases involving different wordings with identical or different meanings, such as synonyms and the like.

For this reason, these variations have an even stronger claim to fall within a single harf of the seven ahruf in which the Quran was revealed than variations in wording or meaning, even when the latter conform to the consonantal outline of the Quranic manuscript—that is, where the difference lies in the consonantal dots or vowel marks.

Accordingly, the leading scholars of Islam among the early generations and the imams did not dispute that recitation throughout Muslim lands need not be confined to these particular readings. Rather, anyone for whom the reading of al-A‘mash, Hamzah’s teacher, or the reading of Ya‘qūb ibn Ishāq al-Hadramī and others like them is as firmly established as the readings of Hamzah and al-Kisā’ī may recite