INVESTIGATION OF THE APPROACH METHOD OF SHAZ RECİTATİONS IN IBN JINNI'S WORK TITLE AL-MUHTASAB
Authors: SAYLAN Nesrişah 
Published: June 2022

Ibn Jinni lived during the Abbasids period. He was born in Mosul in 322/934. His full name was Ebu’l-Fath Osman b. Jinni al-Mavsılı al-Bağdadı. Ibn Jinni showed competency in a variety of fields including syntax, grammar, literature and recitation. It was due to this variety of competencies that he was mentioned in numerous fields throughout the centuries. He was dubbed a grammarian due to his knowledge in syntax, for his knowledge in lexicon he was considered a lexicographer, in regards to his birthplace he was also known as Mavsılı and in reference to the family for whom his father had been a servant he was called Ezdi as well. His competence in the fields of language and literature and his proficiency in solving the problems in these fields also earned him the tag of Ebu’l Fath. His best known work in the field of recitation is al-Muhtasab fı tabyını vucuhı şavazzı’l-kıraat ve’l-ızâh anha. This book is one of the most comprehensive and systematic works on shaz recitations. In this work, Ibn Jinni mentioned and compiled the other recitations that were previously excluded when Ibn Mujahid had restricted them to a number of seven. Yet, this work of the author does not in fact include all the recitations that are described as shaz and which had been excluded in the seven recitations (the qiraat-i seb’a ). As a matter of fact, in the introduction to his book Ibn Jinni pointed to this fact and explained that he had only included those recitations that possess subtle differences that would evade the attention at first glance and that he found it redundant to toil on those which required no linguistic explanations and were easy to figure out as they already were. While recounting the recitation styles and viewpoints, Ibn Jinni mentioned the names of those whom he considered to be the scholars to whom the commonly accepted recitation style was referred. Ibn Jinni also included an expound in length on the criterion of principles that would be employed in separating the authentic recitations from those with a slim chance of qualifying to be considered so, and opting for one of the choices in the former category. In the evaluation of principles, Ibn Jinni employed linguistic evidence such as imputation, al-rasmu’l moshaf, norms of the Arabic language, rules of grammar and syntax, and the differences in dialects along with the narrative evidence like verses of the Qur’an, hadiths, the recitations of the companions of the prophet, the phenomenon of seven letters and the like. Ibn Jinni made vast use of Arabic poetry and the sayings, dialects, grammar and syntax rules of the Arabic language in providing proof to the recitations. Described as he author of unique and wonderful works in the studies of Arabic sciences and a great scholar of grammar and syntax studies, Ibn Jinni applied his scientific proficiency in the Arabic language to establish proof for the recitations. He made use of the principles such as comparison, cause, reason and evidence, which are employed in determining the general norms of language, to grade the recitation styles and sought to find the rhetoric meanings behind the disputes in recitation styles. It has been detected that almost all of the recitations narrated by him were proved by linguistic and narrative evidence. What the author initially aimed to achieve by creating such a work was to reject the traditionally inferior consideration of the recitations which were excluded from the qiraat-i seba and to demonstrate that these recitations did not fall short of the seven recitations. He tried to prove that these recitations too were based on authentic grounds and they were equal to the seven recitations in terms of fluency and rhetoric. It is important to examine the work in point of recitations, in which he mentions the recitation aspects that are equivalent to seven recitations in terms of language and fluency. In this context, this paper examined the method of Ibn Jinnî, one of the leading scholars of the Arabic language, on the way of working, concentrating and choosing the recitations in his al-Muhteseb. Furthermore, this papers refers to the works of previous and latter Quranic commentaries and recitations while depicting Ibn Jinnî’s views method of transference and recitation angles. In this way, Ibn Jinnî's understanding of qiraat and his approach to recitations were determined by comparing them with other sources.