Criteria Adopted In Accepting And Rejecting Qira’at: A Comparative-Analytical Study Conducted On Phonetics Between The Ancient Arab Grammarians And Scholars Of Qira’at

Abstract

This study investigates the methodological criteria and standards in accepting and rejecting Quranic qira’at. This investigation concerns about linguistic-based issues such as phonetics and the well-established rules of Quran recitation. The research problem lies in examining the conditions and requirements to be employed in Quranic qira’at as a reference between the ancient grammarians’ view and qira’at scholars’ views. To tackle this problem, a comparative research method is used to analyse the classification criteria and requirements to be used in validating/verifying accepted qira’at from the unaccepted ones. The findings reveal that the criteria and requirements adopted by qira’at scholars are not employed and considered by most of the ancient linguists. These linguists’ methodology was derived from the phonetic rules out of the Quranic qira’at. The study suggests careful inspection of the goals and objectives of the qira’at scholars and those of the ancient Arab grammarians in dealing with the Quranic qira’at. This, this, provides an essential factors in differentiating the criteria and requirements used in accepting and rejecting one qira’ from another.