As for reciting the concluding or middle portions of surahs, this was not their usual practice. Hence, caution is exercised in declaring it disliked. There is a well-known disagreement over this within the school of Ahmad and elsewhere. Among the most balanced views is that making a habit of it is disliked, whereas doing it occasionally is not, so as not to depart from the established Sunnah and the practice of the early generations—the Companions and Successors.

That being so, it is clear that this method of dividing the Quran into portions and sections departs from the Sunnah more markedly than reciting the concluding or middle portion of a surah in prayer. In any case, there is no doubt that dividing it into sections and portions in keeping with their usual manner of recitation is better. The point is that assigning recitation portions by complete surahs is preferable to assigning them by subdivisions.

Third: The newly introduced division into sections cannot achieve an equal number of letters in each section. This is because spoken and written letters differ in what they include and omit: each has more than the other in certain respects, and the letters also differ in some respects. This may be explained through several points:

First: The alifs that are elided in connected recitation are retained in writing. In pronunciation, they are sounded when starting afresh but omitted when joining words. If the person counting includes them, his count fails to match the reciter’s connected recitation, which is their usual state. If he excludes them, his count fails to match both the reciter’s pronunciation when starting afresh and the written text.