An early Kufic Quranic folio from the 8th century. Distinct colored dots serve as vocalization guides to distinguish between the Qira'at of Warsh (green) and Hamza (red).[1]
Title
See list of titles
Imām ahl al-adāʾ (lit.'Imam of the People of Recitation')
Shaykh al-Iqrāʾ biʾl-diyār al-Miṣriyya (lit.'The Sheikh of Recitation in the Lands of Egypt')
Raʾīs ahl Miṣr (lit.'Chief of the People of Egypt')
Raʾīs fī al-dirāya (lit.'Master of Knowledge')
Raʾīs al-ḍabṭ waʾl-itqān (lit.'Master of Precision and Perfection')
Shaykh al-Qurrāʾ (lit.'The Shaykh of the Reciters')
Abu Sa'id Uthman Ibn Sa‘id al-Qebṭi, better known as Warsh (110-197AH), was a significant figure in the history of Quranic recitation (qira'at), the canonical methods of reciting the Qur'an.[2] Alongside Qalun, he was one of the two primary transmitters of the canonical reading method of Nafi‘ al-Madani.[2][3][4] Together, their style is the most common form of Qur'anic recitation in the generality of African mosques outside of Egypt,[5] and is also popular in Yemen[6] and Darfur despite the rest of Sudan following the method of Hafs.[7] The method of Warsh and his counterpart Qalun was also the most popular method of recitation in Al-Andalus.[8] The majority of printed Mushafs today in North Africa and West Africa follow the reading of Warsh.[9]
Warsh 'an Naafi' is one of the main canonical methods of reciting the Qur'an. The recitations of the Quran, known in Arabic as Qira'at, are conducted under the rules of the Tajwid Science.[10] It is attributed to Imam Warsh who in turn got it from his teacher Nafi‘ al-Madani who was one of the transmitters of the seven recitations. The recitation of Warsh 'an Naafi' is one of two major recitation traditions. The second is Hafs 'an 'Asim.
Biography
Imam Warsh (110-197AH) was born Uthman Ibn Sa‘id al-Qibṭi in Egypt. He was called Warsh, a substance of milk, by his teacher Naafi' because he was light skinned.[11] He learned his recitation from Naafi' at Medina. After finishing his education, he returned to Egypt where he became the senior reciter of the Quran.[12]
Historically, the Warsh qirāʾah was prevalent in Egypt until the Ottoman period in sixteenth century, after which the recitation of Ḥafṣ gradually became the dominant and officially adopted reading.[13] In the modern period, the Kingdom of Morocco has recognized the riwāyah of Warsh as part of the country’s religious and cultural heritage. Muṣḥafs according to the Warsh recitation are printed in several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, and Qatar.[14]
The transmission of the Warsh recitation to the western Islamic lands is associated with Ghāzī ibn Qays al-Andalusī (d.815), who traveled from Córdoba to Medina and studied directly with Warsh. He is reported to have carefully reviewed and corrected his muṣḥaf, comparing it thirteen times with the original copy of Imām Nāfiʿ. Because al-Andalus was a major center of learning, its scholarly authority influenced the Maghreb; when Andalusian scholars adopted the Warsh recitation, it subsequently spread throughout North and West Africa.[14]
Nāfiʿ recitation was preferred by Mālik ibn Anas and his student ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb, and it remained the standard recitation of Medina for an extended period. According to Maḥmūd Khalīl al-Ḥuṣarī (d.1980), he was the first qāriʾ to produce a complete audio recording of the Qurʾān according to the Warsh qirāʾah.[14]
Warsh recitation also played a formative role in shaping how many African languages were written in Arabic script (ʿAjami). Because Warsh was the standard taught in local Qurʾānic schools, its orthographic conventions, including unique characters and diacritic, became a ready “pool of forms” for scholars when adapting Arabic script to represent sounds not found in Classical Arabic.[17]
In Hausa, Fulfulde, and Tuareg ʿAjami systems, features such as the Warsh dot for [/e/] and other graphical variants were adopted to encode vowel and consonant distinctions absent in the Arabic linguistic system.[17]
Sufi orders such as the Tijānīyya and Qādiriyya also transmitted ʿAjami texts in Warsh-derived orthography, and this influence persists in modern publications, such as the Fulfulde Bible (Deftere Allah), which retains elements of the Maghribī-style scripts associated with the Warsh tradition.[17]
Comparison of Warsh and Hafs recitation
The Warsh 'an Naafi' recitation of the Quran differs from Hafs 'an Asim in some orthography. The majority of differences do not affect the meaning. Yet in some cases the differences change the implications of the verse. In verse 2:184 Hafs recites the verse to be "... a ransom [as substitute] of feeding a poor person...". On the other hand, Warsh reads it "... a ransom [as substitute] of feeding poor people..."[18] Other variants that go beyond orthography include:
↑Ince, Barış (2023). "Arabe 330b: The Discovery of Two Canonical Readings". Journal of Islamic Manuscripts. 14 (2–4): 115–154. doi:10.1163/1878464X-01303010.
↑Encyclopedia, The Arabic. "الموسوعة العربية". Archived from the original on November 14, 2016.
↑Nasser, Shady Hekmat. The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawatur and the Emergence of Shawadhdh. Leiden: Brill, 2013, p. 154
↑Belkhir, Mourad (September 19, 2017). "تاريخ قراءة نافع بالجزائر"[History of the Nafi' Recitation in Algeria]. Al-maktaba al-Jazāʾiriyya al-shāmila (in Arabic). Sheikh Ammar Raqba al-Sharafi. Retrieved May 23, 2024.
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