Jam' al-Qira'at al-'Ashr

How the Combined Recitation Is Performed

The scholars follow two approaches (madhāhib) for performing the combined recitation (al-jamʿ): The first is combining word-by-word (al-jamʿ bi-l-ḥarf): the reciter begins reciting, and when he passes a word containing a difference — whether an uṣūlī (principle-based) or a farshī (word-specific) variant — he repeats that word alone until he has exhausted all its variant readings. If it is a word upon which stopping is permissible, he stops and resumes what follows under the same rule; otherwise he joins it to the last variant he ended upon, continuing until he reaches a stopping place, where he stops. If the difference spans two words — such as the separated prolongation (madd munfaṣil) or the pause (sakt) over two words — he stops on the second word, covers the differences, then proceeds to what follows under the same rule. This is the method of the Egyptians. It is the most reliable for exhausting the variant readings, the easiest to take, and the most accessible — but it departs from the elegance of the reading and the beauty of its performance. The second is combining by pausing (al-jamʿ bi-l-waqf): when the reciter begins with the reading of the reader he places first, he continues with that reading until he reaches a stopping point from which it is permissible to begin afterward, and there he stops. He then returns to the next reader — if that reader's variant was not already incorporated in what preceded — and continues until he stops at the same place; and so he proceeds reader by reader until the differences are complete, then begins with what follows that stop under this rule. This is the method of the Syrians (al-Shāmiyyīn). It is stronger for mental readiness and firmer in mastery, longer in time, and better in capability.