Ten qiraat, are ten recitations or readings of Quran, the ten qiraat are different in linguistic, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms, but there is not any difference between the ten qiraat in the text or arrangement of the Quran verses, and they are all permitted and approved

?Qiraat, where did they come from

Prophet Muhammad –peace and blessings be upon him – was the first teacher of Quran recitation, which was revealed from Allah Almighty by the archangel Gabriel, then a lot of companions had memorized the entire Quran, and taught it as an order of Prophet Muhammad –peace and blessings be upon him- and those memorizers were the source from whom the ten qiraat were derived, then when Uthmaan Ibn Affan made copies of the Holy Quran, he hired a reciter for each Muslim country to teach people in this country the rules of Quran recitation, and each reciter was affected by the tone or the manner of speaking of the country he was sent to. And with the passage of time, many people devoted themselves to study Quran and memorizing it until they became Imams and role models in Quran recitation in their countries, as they perfected recitation and hold the responsibility of its teaching, and qiraat were attributed to them

Then, the required conditions for the right qiraa started to appear and be well-defined, and the right qiraat were confined in ten qiraat or readings, and the most famous of which, is Hafs from Asim

:Qiraat, narrations, and paths

As we mentioned before, each Qiraa is attributed to a certain Imam, this qiraa is narrated by the students of this Imam, so it is called Narration, then it is transferred to the others through a Path, and these paths are

Al-Shatibya, which is a poetry by Imam/ al-Qassim al-Shatiby, and it also called “Hirz al-Amani wa wajh al-Tahani” , it is one of the earliest poetries that was written about qiraat science, and it contains the rules of the seven essential qiraat, and it became a path for recitation of the holy Quran

Al-Dorra or al-Dorra al-Modia’a: it is a poetry by Imam al-Jazri and it contains only the rules of the three complementary qiraat, so that al-Satibya and al-Dorra together contain all the ten qiraat

Al-Tybah or” Tybat al-Nashr”; it is also a poetry, by Imam/ Muhammad Ibn al-Jezri, and it contains everything in al-Shatibya and al-Dorra. So it contains the rules of the ten qirrat

:Ten qiraat

The right confirmed qiraat were confined in ten qiraat, which are two types; the Smaller ten qiraat; which are by the path of Shatibya and Dorra, and the larger ten qiraat; which are by the path of Tybat al-Nashr

:And these ten qiraat are as following

.Nafie Ibn abd al-Rahman Ibn Abi Naim Al-Madani

.Abdullah Ibn Kathir Al-Dary Al-Makki

.Abu Amr Ibn Alaa Al-Bassri

.Abdullah Ibn Amr Al-Yahsbi Al-Shami

.Asim Ibn Abi Al-Najood Al-Asadi Al-Kufi

.Hamza Ibn Habib Al-Zayat Al-Kufi

.Abu Al-Hassan Ibn Ali Ibn Hamza Al- Qasaiy Al-Nahawi Al-Kufi

.Abu Jaafar Yazid Ibn Al-qaqaa Al-Madani

.Yaqoub Ibn Ishaq Al-Hadrami Al- Basri

.Khalaf Ibn Hisham

:Ten qiraat and seven letters

Muslim scholars are unanimous on that the seven letters are not the qiraat, they are completely different. Seven letters mean the way to pronounce some letters, as there were many ways of pronunciation of the same letters known for the ancient Arabs, as Prophet Muhammad -Peace and blessings be upon him- said: (This Quran was revealed in seven letters, all of them are healer enough, so read as you have learned).

These seven letters were a beginning of the emergence of the qiraat, but they are not the qiraat , otherwise the qiraat would be only seven qiraat the same as the number of letters, but the qiraat are ten not seven

:Ten qiraat and distortion of Quran

All the ten qirraat became from bonds that are ended by Prophet Muhammad –peace and blessings be upon him- and he didn’t deny any of them, so all the ten qiraat have only one source, it is one book revealed from one God to one Prophet.

There wasn’t any variation, innovation, or disagreement over any of the ten qiraat, and each single qiraa of them had been confirmed and identified, and there isn’t any contradiction between them, on the contrary, all of them are integrated in the meanings, So where does distortion come from

It is impossible for the multiplicity of the qiraat to be a distortion of Quran, as Allah Almighty said: { We have revealed the remembrance, and We are its preservers}, in which Allah Almighty confirmed that He will preserve Quran till the day of resurrection

morphological and syntactical