Tafsir at-Tabari: Jami' al-Bayan - Dar al-Tarbiyah wa al-Turath Edition

Hurayra (May God be pleased with him): That the Messenger of God (Peace and blessings of God be upon him) said: "Indeed, this Qurʾān was sent down according to seven modes, so recite and there is no harm, but do not conclude a mention of mercy with punishment, nor a mention of punishment with mercy." (1)

46- Muḥammad ibn Marzūq narrated to us, he said: Abū Maʿmar ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn Abī al-Ḥajjāj narrated to us, he said: ʿAbd al-Wārith narrated to us, he said: Muḥammad ibn Juḥādah narrated to us, from al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah, from Mujāhid, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, from Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, he said: Gabriel came to the Prophet (Peace and blessings of God be upon him) while he was at the pool of Banū Ghifār, and said: "Indeed, God commands you to have your nation recite the Qurʾān according to one mode." He said: So he said: "I ask God for His forgiveness and His pardon — or he said: His pardon and His forgiveness — ask God for easing for them, for they cannot bear that." Then he went and returned, and said: "Indeed, God commands you to have your nation recite the Qurʾān according to two modes." He said: "I ask God for His forgiveness and His pardon — or he said: His pardon and His forgiveness — indeed, they cannot bear that, so ask God for easing for them." Then he went and returned, and said: "Indeed, God commands you to have your nation recite the Qurʾān according to three modes." So he said: "I ask God for His forgiveness and His pardon — or he said: His pardon and His forgiveness — indeed, they cannot bear that, ask God for easing for them." Then he went and returned, and said: "Indeed, God commands you to have your nation recite the Qurʾān according to seven modes, so whichever mode among them anyone recites, it is as he recited." (2)

Abū Jaʿfar said (3): It has been authentically established that what the Qurʾān was sent down with of the dialects of the Arabs

(1) Hadith 45: Ibn Abī Uways: He is Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Uways al-Madanī, the nephew of Mālik ibn Anas on his sister's side and his relative by marriage. His brother: He is Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh. And al-Maqburī: He is Saʿīd ibn Abī Saʿīd.
And this hadith, with this chain of transmission and wording, I have not found in another place, and its chain of transmission is Sahih (authentic) according to the conditions of the two Sheikhs [al-Bukhārī and Muslim]. Two hadiths from Abū Hurayra have already passed with three chains of transmission, under numbers: 7–9.
(2) Hadith 46: The hadith has passed in abbreviated form, number: 34, from the route of Muḥammad ibn Juḥāda. And we pointed to it there.
(3) This is the answer to his statement at the beginning of the chapter, p. 21 line 14: "Since that was so, and the reports had been corroborated on his authority—peace and blessings of God be upon him—by what Khallād ibn Aslam narrated to us... it became sound and established," etc. Ibn Kathīr in Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān (69–70) transmitted some of al-Ṭabarī's words here, and abridged them.

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