• 1 My sincere thanks to an anonymous reviewer, Asma Hilali, Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau, Jean Druel OP, Den (...)
• 2 Hilali, The Sanaa Palimpsest; “The Qurʾān Before the Book”; Nasser, The Transmission of the Variant (...)
• 3 Graham and Kermani, “Recitation and Aesthetic Reception”; Kermani, God is Beautiful.
• 4 Neuwirth, The Qurʾan and Late Antiquity.
• 5 Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qurʾan.
• 6 Frishkopf, “Mediated Qurʾanic Recitation”.
• 7 Gade, Perfection Makes Practice.

1The story that has been told thus far about the recitation of the Quran has taken different shapes depending on the specific historical moments being examined.1 Recitation in the early empire is often understood as a means of transmission and dissemination, wherein recitation is a tool for spreading the words of the Quran and a developmental phase or process through which these words come to be codified in the form of a written text.2 Recitation at the moment of genesis of the Quran is also understood as demonstrating the aesthetic power and authority of orality to its original audience,3 or it may relate to a broader understanding of the Quran as reflective and guiding of liturgy in the early community.4 When looking to recitation in the modern period, while approaches have been wide-ranging in their specific conceptualizations of recitation (ranging from performed event5 to media6 to long-term devotional projects7), the ability of scholars to access sound recordings and hear the sounds of recitation live while conducting ethnographic research shape the conversation significantly. The availability of the sounds of the Quran in the modern period shapes the approaches taken to studying it and the questions scholars ask of it. Considering the sounds of the Quran in premodern periods presents a significant historiographical problem that has not yet been fully considered. Attention to premodern texts that describe and direct sonic practices lead us to ask what we can and cannot know about the sounds and practices being discussed, what other areas of life those sounds might come into contact with, and how we might fit an understanding of those sonic practices into the history of Quran recitation and Islamic tradition more broadly in such a way where we do not fall prey to the temptation of reading modern assumptions about sounds and practices back into early periods at the expense of seeing or hearing other possibilities.

• 8 His name appears in sources as both Ibn Ḫāqān and al-Ḫāqānī. In his introduction to his edition of (...)

2In this article, I focus on an early text on the recitation of the Quran—its rules and ethics—to ask what a premodern text might tell us about the sounds and practices of recitation in the distant past. I consider the Qaṣīda fī al-taǧwīd, also referred to as his Qaṣīda rāʾiyya (qaṣīda rhyming on the letter rāʾ) attributed to Mūsā ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ḫāqān (or : Mūsā ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ḫāqānī) (248/862‒325/937)8 as an early case study in the ethics of reciting the Quran aloud. I do so in relation to parallel discourses about transmission of knowledge and appropriate religious authority, early debates about sonic aesthetics of the recited Quran, and the early development of the rules of its pronunciation—taǧwīd—, and general etiquette of recitation. The poem represents a significant historical artefact with respect to Quran recitation in that, if correctly attributed, represents the earliest extant record of the developing rules of taǧwīd, just prior to when they are normally understood as being systematized. The poem also serves as a window into early 10th-century debates about religious practice, shedding light on the development and establishment of Sunni orthopraxy in the final decades of the Abbasid empire.

• 9 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 51; Brockelmann, History of the Arabic Written Tradition; “8 (...)
• 10 Ibn al-Ǧazarī, Ġāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ, vol. 2, pp. 279–280.
• 11 “Huwa awwal man ṣannaf fī al-taǧwīd fīmā aʿlam.” Ibn al-Ǧazarī, Ġāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrā (...)
• 12 Al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī, Taʾrīḫ Baġdād, vol. 13, p. 59.

4A qaṣīda (ode) of 51 verses attributed to Mūsā ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ḫāqān Abū Muzāḥim al-Ḫāqānī al-Baġdādī (d. 325/927, hereafter Ibn Ḫāqān) is potentially one of the earliest preserved works on the rules of Quran recitation.9 Born in Baghdad, Ibn Ḫāqān came from a family of Abbasid ministers, with his grandfather, father, and brother all having served the empire.10 Ibn al-Ǧazarī (d. 833/1429), in his biographical dictionary of readers of the Quran, a key source recording names and biographical data of individuals involved in transmitting and preserving the recited words in early tradition records Ibn Ḫāqān as an imam, a reciter of Quran, and a trustworthy transmitter of authentic Sunni hadith. The entry notes that he was “the first who composed in taǧwīd, so far as I know”.11 Ibn Ḫāqān is also included in the Taʾrīḫ Baġdād of Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī (d. 463/1071), and while the entry confirms certain details of his life (birth, death, and that his father was a minister for the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil), it does not mention the qaṣīda.12

• 13 Ibn al-Ǧazarī, Ġāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ, vol. 2, p. 280.
• 14 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, pp. 80–82.

5The scant works of scholarship available on the poem are ambivalent concerning questions of how well-known it may have been during Ibn Ḫāqān’s own lifetime, or in subsequent generations. Writing approximately 500 years later, Ibn al-Ǧazarī claims in his biographical dictionary entry on Ibn Ḫāqān that the Qaṣīda rāʾiyya was famous and that the medieval Andalusian scholar Abū ʿAmr ʿUṯmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dānī (d. 444/1053)—known for his works on taǧwīd and the variant readings of the Quran (qirāʾāt)—wrote a commentary (šarḥ) on it around a century after the poem’s original composition.13 In his 1938 study of the poem, Paulo Boneschi suggests that the fact that Ibn Ḫāqān was given the title of “imam” during his lifetime (and he is recorded this way in Ibn al-Ǧazarī’s biographical dictionary of reciters, as described above) indicates that he was respected and considered as a scholar at least among his own students. However, Boneschi finds it curious that a didactic poem such as Ibn Ḫāqān’s qaṣīda would not have taken on more of a life in tradition, generating more commentaries for example, given its utility in teaching and transmitting the details of recitation. The fact of the relative absence of commentaries (save one by al-Dānī further described below), along with the fact that Ibn al-Nadīm does not mention Ibn Ḫāqān or his qaṣīda in the Fihrist, his encyclopaedic work on compiled a mere 60 years after Ibn Ḫāqān’s death, leads Boneschi to conclude that the poem may not have enjoyed great popularity during Ibn Ḫāqān’s lifetime or in the generations thereafter, and he further adds that Ibn Ḫāqān acquiring a circle of students may have been a result of his social standing, rather than through his possessing talent and knowledge.14

• 15 Al-Ḫāqānī, “al-Qaṣīda al-ḫāqāniyya fī al-qirāʾa wa-ḥusn al-adāʾ”.
• 16 A concise and comprehensive portrait of the history of development of recitation practices is avail (...)
• 17 Nasser, The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān, p. 2.

6While Ibn al-Nadīm indeed did not record evidence of Ibn Ḫāqān and his qaṣīda, al-Dānī produced the one extant commentary on the poem just over a century after Ibn Ḫāqān’s time.15 Al-Dānī and Abū Bakr Ibn Muǧāhid (d. 324/936) are known as the authors of some of the earliest extant systematic works on the rules of taǧwīd.16 Their works are often cited as being some of the earliest in a genre that became widely accessible after that time, serving to codify the body of knowledge governing proper recitation and pronunciation of the Quran, in addition to their works on the variant readings of the Quran—the qirāʾāt—serving a similarly key role in the codification of the variant readings. In particular, Ibn Muǧāhid has been understood as codifying in the early- to mid-10th century recitation practices that had long been debated and developing. In his recent study of Ibn Muǧāhid’s foundational work Kitāb al-sabʿa fī al-qirāʾāt, Shady Nasser articulates how he understands Ibn Muǧāhid’s work as a moment in a long process of editing and standardization of the quranic text, in which recitation played a key role (both orthographically as in the qirāʾāt and in terms of practice, via taǧwīd): “Qirāʾāt in general, and the sophisticated rules of tajwīd (recitation) in particular, were the tools Qurʾān readers and grammarians used to standardize and stabilize the Qurʾānic text. Standardizing the Qurʾān meant editing it, that is, correcting its substandard usages, eliminating its irregularities, and preparing it for public recitation. Thus, at a fundamental level, my treatment of the development of Qirāʾāt literature builds on the idea that it was a process of editing and standardizing.”17 So while Ibn Muǧāhid died roughly a decade after Ibn Ḫāqān, given that Ibn Muǧāhid systematized practices that had long been used in processes of standardization of the Quran, Ibn Ḫāqān’s qaṣīda can be understood as representing a slightly earlier moment in this process.

• 19 Al-Ḫāqānī, “al-Qaṣīda al-ḫāqāniyya fī al-tilāwa wa-ḥusn al-adāʾ”; “al-Qaṣīda al-ḫāqāniyya fī al-qir (...)
• 20 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 92.
• 21 Al-Ḫāqānī, “al-Qaṣīda al-ḫāqāniyya fī al-tilāwa wa-ḥusn al-adāʾ”.

9Ibn Ḫāqān’s qaṣīda serves as an opening onto a broader world of sonic and ethical practices in relation to the recited Quran in the tenth century. Interestingly, the poem has not generated a great deal of attention in modern scholarship, the main work dedicated to it including Boneschi’s 1938 article and accompanying French annotated translation, and the modern Arabic editions of the poem including notes from al-Dānī’s commentary by ʿAlī Ḥusayn Ḥassan al-Bawwāb.19 In commenting on the poem, Boneschi’s main considerations consist of unpacking the rules of taǧwīd described therein, in addition to critically analysing the question of authorship and with what degree of certainty we may trust that Ibn Ḫāqān indeed composed the poem. With regard to the latter, he concludes that through modern historical-critical methods the poem’s authorship cannot be established with certainty, but that the poem itself also does not allow the scholar to deny that it is likely from the tenth century.20 Al-Bawwāb, by contrast, considers the poem as a valuable didactic tool on key aspects of taǧwīd and the broader ethics of recitation, and considers Ibn Ḫāqān’s authorship as demonstrated in the traditional historical sources, including those such as Ibn al-Ǧazarī’s Ġāyat al-nihāya and the Taʾrīḫ Baġdād as discussed briefly earlier.21

• 22 Bennison, The Great Caliphs, pp. 170–199.
• 23 Bonner, “The Waning of Empire, 861–945”, p. 348.

10Especially given the fact that the poem includes a polemic about religious practice, it is also possible to understand it in the context of the broader development of Islamic thought and history. While it serves as a particularly early record of the development of taǧwīd specifically, it may also serve as a window into developing debates about orthopraxy in 10th-century Baghdad. Ibn Ḫāqān lived and worked in a moment of political turmoil and eventual decline in the Abbasid empire, as well as a great deal of debate, development, and flourishing of developing fields of Islamic theology and law, and translation of a wide range of bodies of knowledge in Baghdad specifically.22 This moment was approximately a century and a half after the founders of what came to be the major schools of Islamic law, and just after the major Abbasid translation movement introduced a wide range of types of new knowledge into Baghdad and the Islamic empire more broadly. Yet his life was also just prior to the major theological developments and cultural revival that took place in the century after his death. About this moment in history, Michael Bonner has noted that the first half of the tenth century has often fallen through the cracks in historical research: “Historians often neglect the history of the first half of the tenth century, perhaps because they see it as a painful transition between effective ʿAbbāsid rule and the ensuing period of Būyid domination in Iraq and western Iran, famous for its ‘renaissance of Islam’.”23 Here, we can see Ibn Ḫāqān as connecting these more thoroughly studied historical moments, and reflecting an ongoing debate at a period of the key development of Sunni orthopraxy.

• 24 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 57.

12The poem begins with a 4-verse introduction in which the speaker attests to his humility and makes an appeal for divine help and protection in his task of teaching recitation.24 Following, in verses 5‒7, the speaker turns to address the reciter of the Quran, assuring them of the reward in the hereafter for becoming proficient in recitation. However, there is, according to the poetic speaker, a problem at his current moment regarding appropriate authority in teaching and transmitting the recited Quran, as conveyed in verse 6:

• 26 Verses 9‒11. Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 58.
• 27 Ibn Muǧāhid, Kitāb al-sabʿa fī al-qirāʾāt.
• 28 Leemhuis, “Readings of the Qurʾān”; While an extended study of this connection to the development o (...)

13In verses 8‒11, the poet attests to the manner in which his teaching is based in authoritative tradition, and these verses name each of the seven reciters after which the seven original variant readings follow.26 The seven names listed in these verses correspond to the seven variant readings that Ibn Muǧāhid determined at approximately that same time to be authoritative in his Kitāb al-sabʿa fī al-qirāʾāt.27 Ibn Muǧāhid’s view on and systematization of variant readings was taken up as legal practice in by Abbasid vizier Ibn Muqla in 323/936, making the codification of the qirāʾāt roughly contemporaneous with or even slightly after the likely moment of composition of Ibn Ḫāqān’s Rāʾiyya.28 The readings themselves are attributed to individuals who lived earlier, however, with those seven individuals having died mid-2nd century/in the latter half of the eight century. Ibn Muǧāhid’s intervention was into a debate that had been ongoing concerning which variant readings were acceptable and on what grounds. Notably, his work became authoritative only a handful of years after the death of Ibn Ḫāqān.

• 29 Qirāʾāt refers here to the system of variant readings of the Quran, a matter of discussion since th (...)
• 30 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 52.
• 31 Translations from Boneschi’s French article are my own. Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, pp. 52- (...)
• 32 Here, Boneschi cites and includes a quotation in Arabic from the 17th-century Ottoman-era historian (...)

17The poem can be read as both reflective of and arguing to produce norms of embodied practice. In his study on the poem, Boneschi introduces the text of the poem with an overview of taǧwīd; specifically, he frames the science of taǧwīd as being about “norms…of orthopraxy”, as opposed to the science of qirāʾāt,29 which pertains more to “orthographic, grammatical, and lexicographical” issues.30 Boneschi frames the science of taǧwīd as being “more of a practical art than a theoretical science”.31 The point here is that Boneschi situates the science of taǧwīd as being a theoretical discourse describing (and prescribing, in the sense of providing rules for) embodied practice.32

• 33 The relevant verses are discussed later in this section.

18In analysing the text of the Raʾiyya, we see that the vocabulary of describing recitation may be read in a range of ways, depending on how we situate that vocabulary with respect to Islamic tradition and the historicization of Arabic language. The poem may be read as a polemic on religious practice and knowledge as expressed through the aesthetics of recitation, written in poetic form. It is also didactic in the sense that it transmits knowledge about recitation, but it is didactic in a very different sense from the later Ǧazariyya poem—another much more widely known and studied poem on taǧwīd. The Ǧazariyya is a popular name for another didactic poem on taǧwīd by Ibn al-Ǧazarī. The Ǧazariyya is, similarly to Ibn Ḫāqān’s poem, written with a strict meter and rhyme pattern typical of premodern Arabic poetry, but in these cases often said to work particularly well as shaping a work meant to be a teaching tool likely to be memorized. The Ǧazariyya, by contrast to Ibn Ḫāqān’s Raʾiyya, has enjoyed significantly more popularity, and is still used on occasion as the backbone of modern taǧwīd manuals. The Ǧazariyya largely consists of a recitation of the rules of taǧwīd set to rhyming metrical verse, such that the student who recites the poem recalls not only all the rules of taǧwīd, but also enacts them in reading the poem. The rules of taǧwīd have also remained largely stable since the composition of the Ǧazariyya, so the poem has remained a comprehensive resource for learning in that way. The rules in their modern form, or even as presented in the Ǧazariyya, do not all appear in Ibn Ḫāqān’s Rāʾiyya, however. The Rāʾiyya is comparatively scant in this regard, which could mean several different things. It could be that the rules were in an earlier stage of development and those that do not appear came into practice later. Or, it could be the case that the rules are presented in an incomplete fashion, which also could be done for different reasons. The poem also does not purport completeness in this regard, nor does it seem to hold this as an implicit goal. Rather, the poem itself tells us that it is an abridgement or an introduction,33 but ties them in to a broader claim about ethics of style and aesthetics in relation to Quran recitation, as well as appropriate authority in transmitting the recitation. To this end, the guidelines of producing the sounds of recitation expand outward to what may be understood as para-sonic concerns of ethics, aesthetics, and authority. The guidelines about sound, such as phonetics, pronunciation, and pace of recitation, become microcosms expanded outward to broader points that are not about sound per se, but are interrelated with the points about sound.

• 35 Denny, “Qurʾān Recitation”, pp. 7, 15, 20–21.
• 36 Denny, “Qurʾān Recitation”, pp. 19–20.

22Here, initially skill (ḥiḏq) and haste (ḥadr) are opposed, as well as reciting (rattala) and hastening (ḥadarnā). The point on the surface is that to hasten one’s studies and one’s reciting lessens the spiritual value of the practice. The faithful (ʿibād, typically used to express “servants of God”, meaning believers or the faithful) receive ease, so it is likely that by contrast those who hasten their lessons increase their burden in doing so. But a more specific and technical interpretation of these verses is also possible. The verb used here for “recite”, tartīl, most specifically describes a slow style of recitation, with emphasis on clarity and accuracy of pronunciation.35 The root being used here for haste and hastening—ḥadr, which is clearly used in a negative sense in the poem—is also a term denoting a specific style of Quran recitation. In ḥadr-style recitation, the reciter’s main priority is speed—to recite quickly in order to give voice to a certain amount of the Quran, either for spiritual merit or for the maintenance of memorization.36 Although in all styles the rules of pronunciation are meant to be followed, the critique here in the poem seems to be that ḥadr-style recitation does not incur the same divine favour as a recitation performed more slowly, with more distinct pronunciation.

• 37 Q. al-Muzzammil 73:4.

23Ibn Ḫāqān’s point then, in verse 14, is that tartīl—more slow-paced, evenly-spaced recitation—incurs greater divine favour than fast-paced, ḥadr-style recitation. The point is bolstered by the quranic resonance of the term tartīl, which lends a quranic basis to Ibn Ḫāqān’s preference for tartīl-style recitation. Tartīl is one of a small handful of terms used in the Quran for the act of reading or reciting aloud, alongside qirāʾa and tilāwa. The second hemistich of verse 14 reads “we are commanded to it”, wherein the antecedent of “it” is tartīl al-Qurʾān in the first half of the verse, making tartīl the variety of recitation that is commanded. This point on one level likely refers to the second half of verse 4 of Sūrat al-Muzzammil, which reads “rattil al-Qurʾāna tartīlan”.37 This verse is often cited and interpreted as a divine command to recite the Quran. But even more, it is often cited as a command indicating that the Quran should be recited in a specific way. The sentence repeats the same root twice in what is known as an accusative of specification (al-mafʿūl al-muṭlaq), directing the quranic listener to recite (rattil) in the manner indicated by the adverbial form of that same root. Here in the Rāʾiyya, tartīl is understood in contradistinction to ḥadr, so the quranic verse is being interpreted specifically in this light. Going on then, the theme of slowness is carried through the verse with the wording “from our abiding in him in thought” (min mukṯinā fīhi bi-l-fikri) with mukṯinā meaning our abiding or tarrying. This point serves as one example of a point about sound broadening to other areas of practice—in this case, how a student of recitation would approach and conduct themselves with respect to their studies. Just as their recitation should be slow-paced and with an emphasis on clarity, so should their studies.

• 38 Verse 23. Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 59.

24Following a short sequence of verses describing the virtues of learning the poem and studying taǧwīd (verses 16‒22), the poem turns to describe some details of how recitation should be studied and performed. First, there is memorization: “The principle of the science of dhikr is mastery of its memorization”;38 here, ḏikr is used again in the sense of meaning Quran recitation, allowing the meter to be maintained, and helpfully picking back up on the word’s earlier use at the end of verse 21, where it fit both the rhyme and the meter.

• 40 Melchert, “The Controversy over Reciting the Qurʾān with Tones”, p. 103.
• 41 Melchert, “The Controversy over Reciting the Qurʾān with Tones”, p. 102.

28Following its earlier point about the importance of memorization, the poem makes a vehement point about removing the sound of laḥn from one’s recitation. The semantic range of this term is broad, and tracking its usage in contemporaneous and preceding bodies of literature of diverse genres demonstrates that its usage in Ibn Ḫāqān’s poem is similarly broad. As Christopher Melchert has shown, early Islamic sources show both that reciting with laḥn was an established practice by the late seventh century, as evidenced by the expressions of disapproval to the practice found in sources of that period.40 It is also the case that early men of religion (with some exceptions also discussed by Melchert) generally cautioned against reciting in a musical way, and sometimes employed the term laḥn in so doing.41 Melchert suggests that reciting the Quran with laḥn could have been an established practice in Medina by the mid-8th century, with the practice spreading in later centuries to Baghdad. My findings here add further evidence in this regard, and the expand the range of sources in understanding what Ibn Ḫāqān may mean by laḥn in his poem. Tracking the term in diverse literature—such as encyclopaedic works, early works on Arabic phonetics, works on music, and of course the quranic sciences—serves as a portrait into the development of early debates and practices of Quran recitation that may seem remote and surprising to the modern eye and ear. Laḥn is a word with a range of interrelated meanings including melody or tune, as well as accent in spoken language, dialect, variant readings of the Quran rejected from the canonical tradition, or simply ungrammatical or unclear Arabic. The message of these verses concerning laḥn, however, is clear, momentarily leaving aside the question of the precise meaning of laḥn in this specific case, when it first appears in verses 23‒24:

• 43 Boneschi, “La qaṣīda fi ’t-taǧwīd”, p. 70, n. 4; Ǧurǧānī, Hāḏā kitāb al-taʿrīfāt, p. 128.

29The message is that the use or appearance of laḥn is to be avoided in Quran recitation. But what is meant by laḥn here? Given the semantic range of the word, it may seem to mean anything from reciting the Quran with a melody, to reciting the Quran with an accent, to lending incorrect emphasis and pacing of syllables, to reciting the Quran with mispronunciations. Boneschi includes a note with his translation of these verses, reading as follows: “Laḥn signifies here ‘popular erroneous pronunciation; dialectical pronunciation; barbarism’. Laḥn often consists of qualitative and quantitative alteration of the vowels”; following, he includes a quotation from the encyclopaedia by ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ǧurǧānī (d. 815/1413), al-Taʿrīfāt, defining laḥn “in the Quran and in the long aḏān, [as] to prolong what is short and to shorten what is long”43 Boneschi’s reading is that laḥn thereby refers to mispronunciation, and his citation of al-Ǧurǧānī suggests that the mispronunciation could be specifically understood as incorrect emphasis or pacing between syllables. It is possible to expand this point as follows by turning to earlier literature in the genres of religious sciences as well as music.

• 44 Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl muškil al-Qurʾān, pp. 36–45.
• 45 Interestingly, although little is known about Ibn Qutayba’s career, he is said to have had contact (...)

30Understanding laḥn as referring to pronunciation—in terms of accent or dialect—has precedence in debates in the early tradition about acceptability of variant readings of the Quran. In his Taʾwīl muškil al-Qurʾān (Interpretation of the Difficulties of the Qurʾān, a work on understanding the particularities of quranic rhetoric), 9th-century theologian and author of adab Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) uses the term laḥn to refer to an accent or dialect in the context of debates about the acceptability of variant readings of the Quran. In the section, “Bāb mā udduʿiya ʿalā al-Qurʾān min al-laḥn”, (“The Section on What is Claimed about the Quran on Laḥn”, which immediately follows the chapter on the qirāʾāt, “Bāb al-radd ʿalayhim fī wuǧūh al-qirāʾāt”) Ibn Qutayba uses laḥn to refer to readings of the Quran that have been deemed to be incorrect or excessive in some way in their pronunciation.44 He provides numerous examples of specific verses that were said to have been read in different ways, primarily with different variations on the vocalization, often stemming from different understandings of the grammar and, relatedly, the proper declension (iʿrāb) of a word.45

• 47 The quotation here is from my annotated translation accompanying this article. This citation refers (...)

32As I also explain in a note on this verse in the translation of the poem, “nabra generally refers to an accent or stress, so here in general terms the laḥn would mean that this would be a form of mispronunciation wherein the cadence of the recitation would be incorrect. Nabra can also refer to pronouncing something with a hamza or glottal stop. Most specifically, as Boneschi explains in note 5 on page 73, nabra refers to the final hamza on a word”.47 The point in this usage of laḥn is clearly about a mispronunciation of the text. In this sense, laḥn is being used to indicate an error.

• 48 Denny, “Qurʾān Recitation”, p. 10.

33Alternatively, it has also been suggested that Ibn Ḫāqān’s use of laḥn may refer to certain practices of reciting the Quran with melodies of popular music, as had been done but was banned in the early Abbasid era. This explanation certainly seems more potentially applicable to the first uses of laḥn in the poem that do not necessarily indicate that they concern pronunciation. Frederick Denny notes that, “[T]he recitation by means of secular melodies, known as qirāʾa b’il-alḥān, came to be outlawed by the ʿUlamāʾ during early ʿAbbasid times”.48 On the surface level, reciting with melody (qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān) might mean reciting the Quran with variations in pitch, which is roughly a description of how many recitations sound today, potentially causing confusion as to what is meant in its usage here. As M. Talbi has shown, however, looking in to the meanings of qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān in literature on music dating to this period reveals a much more complex portrait, with meanings and practices shifting a great deal over time.

• 49 Al-Kindī, Risāla fī ḫabar taʾlīf al-alḥān.
• 50 This treatise is incomplete and exists only in manuscript. Shiloah, The Dimension of Music in Islam (...)
• 51 Shiloah, The Dimension of Music in Islamic and Jewish Culture, vol. 3, p. 58.

34The term laḥn appears in Arabic works on music dating to the early centuries of Islam, preceding and up to the time of Ibn Ḫāqān, and is used in the sense of melody or tune. For example, the philosopher Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (d. 252/866‒867), wrote two treatises in the first half of the ninth century on melody and composition of music, Risāla fī ḫabar taʾlīf al-alḥān, “Treatise on the Composition of Melodies”,49 and Risāla fī al-luḥūn wa-l-naġam, “Treatise on Melodies and Modes”50). And in the “Epistle on Music” by the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-ḫillān al-wafāʾ from the latter half of the tenth century, laḥn is used as meaning rhythm or rhythmical modes.51 That the term is also used in musical traditions in the early centuries of Islam is clear. When bearing in mind the fraught relationship between music and religious practice in Islamic tradition, one might ask whether the religious and musical bodies of literature are siloed in their respective uses of the term laḥn.

• 52 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vol. 2, pp. 310–311.
• 53 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vols 7–8, pp. 3–87.

36Al-ʿIqd al-farīd provides one particularly full Arabic-language portrait of key bodies of knowledge and related practices from the first half of the tenth century, and illustrates the two seemingly divergent but interpenetrating ways in which the term laḥn may be understood. For example, the “Book of the Ruby on Knowledge and Etiquette”, (the sixth book in the work, “Kitāb al-yāqūta fī al-ʿilm wa-l-adab”) contains a “Section on Laḥn and Mispronunciation” (“Bāb fī al-laḥn wa-l-taṣḥīf”).52 Later in the work, however, appears the “Book of the Second Ruby on the Knowledge of Alḥān and the Disagreement of People Thereupon” (“Kitāb al-yāqūta al-ṯāniya fī ʿilm al-alḥān wa-iḫtilāf al-nās fīh).53 Much of this book consists of reports representing differences of opinions concerning and reactions to singing (ġināʾ), particularly in so far as how that category may bump up against other related issues or categories and practices that it might resemble.

• 54 See Nelson’s chapter “The Samāʿ Polemic” for a particularly thorough overview and consideration of (...)
• 55 Farmer, A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century, p. 22; Faruqi, “Music, Musicians and Musl (...)

37With respect to the use of laḥn in al-ʿIqd al-farīd’s section “Book of the Second Ruby on the Knowledge of Alḥān and the Disagreement of People Thereupon”, a word on the relationship between recitation and music is necessary. The overarching theme of this section of the work is laḥn (as melody), and while the theorization of this concept is broad and not strictly limited to music, music is obviously the theme of many of the subsections. The relationship between Islamic tradition and music has been fraught and complex.54 Thinking both historically and synchronically about recitation in relation to musical practices is complex in large part because, when looking to the foundational sources of Islamic tradition (Quran and hadith), it is possible to build opposing claims. This is in large part because the Quran is silent on the issue of music, so arguments made immediately rely on specific interpretive strategies and cannot be grounded in specific vocabulary in foundational texts in ways in which they may be on other topics. While arguments based in quranic sources can be and are made both in favour of and against musical practices, the Quran does not contain many of the key terms one would search for in asking about music.55 This ambiguity is compounded by the complex relationship between the messages of the Quran and early Islam in relation to pre-Islamic practices such as poetry and music.

• 56 Talbi, “La qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān”.
• 57 Denny, “Qurʾān Recitation”, p. 10.
• 58 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vols 7–8, p. 3.

38While the contemporary sounds and practices of recitation may shape our assumptions of recitation in the past to a great deal, it is important to recognize that, especially given the ambiguity and silence of foundational sources on the issue of music, recitation practices of the remote past may surprise us in their contrast to modern sounds and practices. As Mohamed Talbi shows in his 1958 article, “La qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān”, the meaning of qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān, or reciting with alḥān, changed a great deal in the first three centuries of Islam,56 and as Denny has suggested, the use of laḥn or alḥān may have been referring more immediately to particular practices associated with recitation that were associated with the developing musical tradition in Baghdad that were banned during Abbasid times,57 which could be the more direct point of reference for Ibn Ḫāqān’s reference to laḥn in the Rāʾiyya. Al-ʿIqd al-farīd’s section on musical practices reveals a range of perspectives on laḥn (conceived of as melody or tune, rather than as accent or mispronunciation as discussed above) from the early- to mid-3rd/10th century, and even considers some sources from the early history of Islam such as hadith. In the dialectical style that is typical of the work more broadly, Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih points out that diverse perspectives exist on the permissibility of laḥn, ranging from those who despise it (karahahu), why they might do so, and likewise those who condone it (istaḥsanahu), and why.58

• 59 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vols 7–8, p. 7.
• 60 Exclaiming, “Hayh! Istiḥsānan lahā”. Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vols 7–8, p. 8.

39A handful of perspectives included in the section comprise portraits of what may be meant by qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān, in the sense of “reciting with melody”. In the section, “Disagreement of People on Singing” (“Iḫtilāf al-nās fī al-ġināʾ”), Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih includes a saying attributed to the Prophet’s wife ʿĀʾiša. She is reported to have said, “teach your children poetry [which will] be sweet [on] their tongues”.59 Then, upon hearing a recitation of some hundred rhyming verses, the Prophet is reported to have exclaimed positively.60 The following passage from this section of al-ʿIqd al-farīd then elucidates further:

• 62 Here, in his translation, Farmer includes a note explaining that the Arabs have used set tunes in s (...)

40In this passage, laḥn is reasoned to be acceptable on the basis that it is acceptable to be used with the Quran and the call to prayer. Even more,poetry is in fact more reliant on the use of laḥn in so far as it may be helpful in establishing the poetic meter62 and identifying the poem as such in opposition to other genres. The implication here is that the Quran (as well as the call to prayer) being recited with laḥn is being treated as a standard by which the use of laḥn in other contexts may be deemed acceptable by extension.

• 63 “ʿĀṣim ʿan Ǧurayǧ, qāla: ʻsaʾaltu ʿAṭāʾ ʿan qirāʾat al-Qurʾān ʿalā alḥān al-ġināʾ wa-l-ḥudāʾ, qāla: (...)

41Another report seems to be even more approving of reciting the Quran with laḥn, stating that “ʿĀṣim, from Ǧurayǧ, said: ‘I asked ʿAtāʾ about reciting the Quran with the alḥān of singing (ġināʾ) and of the caravan song (ḥudāʾ)’. He said: ‘[There is] no harm in that, oh son of my brother!’”63 And this report has been interpreted to indicate that the use of the alḥān that are also used in musical practices such as singing, and musical genres such as the caravan song, may also be used in reciting the Quran.

• 64 Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, vols 7–8, p. 16.

42Of course, in so far as Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih includes a range of perspectives on the acceptability of laḥn, not all are so positive. A final example that also refers to the recitation of the Quran provides a less straightforward message, which I will paraphrase here. A story of a man singing (ġannā) in a mosque is included, and it becomes a point of confusion whether he is in fact singing or reciting the Quran. He is said to have been singing in a mosque, and nearby a man of the Quraysh was praying. The mosque-attendants heard him and asked whether he was singing (tuġannī) in the mosque, taking him to the guard. The Qurayshi said, “He is only reciting!” (“Innamā kāna yaqraʾ!”), to which the guard responded (to the mosque-attendants), “Oh degenerates, have you brought me a man reciting the Quran, asserting that he is singing? Let him go on his way!”64 Notably, the report does not use the word laḥn. It does tell of a man’s recitation of the Quran (qirāʾat al-Qurʾān) being mistaken for singing (ġināʾ), however, and Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih has included the tale under the larger section centred on laḥn. The passage does not make explicit that the recitation was mistaken for singing because of the use of melody of laḥn specifically. The early reports employed in al-ʿIqd al-farīd demonstrates that the understanding of laḥn, and relatedly, the issue of tune or melody in Quran recitation, is ambivalent.

• 65 Talbi, “La qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān”, pp. 186–187.
• 66 Al-Ṭurṭūšī, Kitāb al-ḥawādiṯ wa-l-bidaʿ.
• 67 Talbi, “La qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān”, pp. 186–187.

43Mohamed Talbi suggests that qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān may have meant most specifically the practice of reciting the Quran to the tunes of popular songs, and that this may have been a practice that thrived especially in early-Abbasid Baghdad. In “La qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān”, Talbi refers not just to the understanding of laḥn as melody or tune in general, but to a usage whereby it would refer to a specific set of musical practices that had come to be associated with the recited Quran. Talbi points out that the mid-7th to mid-8th centuries witnessed, in Baghdad as well as Medina, the gradual systematization of recitation as well as music as artistic disciplines, through the development of theoretical discourses as well as the founding of educational institutions specific to each of these areas.65 At the same time that recitation was developing into an art “with rules and discipline”, so was music, and these developments also took expression on an institutional level through the founding of schools. Talbi points out that Baghdad was particularly a centre for qirāʾa bi-l-alḥān, citing both the work by 11th-century jurist Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūšī, Kitāb al-ḥawādiṯ wa-l-bidaʿ66 (ʻBook of Happenings and Innovationsʼ), as well as the 10th-century compendium of popular song, Kitāb al-aġānī, from Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī.67