The Approaches of Scholars to Melodious Recitation and to the Application of the Maqām Styles in the Recitation of the Noble Qurʾān

Abstract

The article analyses the positions taken by the scholars of the four schools of law, and by contemporary scholars of recitation, upon reciting the Noble Qurʾān with melody (taghannī, tarannum) and upon applying the rules of the science of the melodic modes (maqāmāt) in recitation. The proofs of the two parties are set out: those of Imām Mālik and Imām Aḥmad and their companions, who held melodious recitation to be impermissible, and those of Imām Abū Ḥanīfa and Imām al-Shāfiʿī and their companions, who held it permissible, together with the ḥadīths adduced on either side and the assessment of their chains of transmission. The article shows, on the authority of al-Ṣābūnī, that the disagreement is formal rather than substantial, since all the jurists are agreed that reciting in a manner that damages the rules of intonation is forbidden. It then examines the ruling of the scientific council of the international «Taḥfīẓ al-Qurʾān» organization of Saudi Arabia point by point, together with the replies given to it by the specialists in the science of the modes, and sets out the views of contemporary authorities on both sides. The article concludes that reciting the Noble Qurʾān upon the basis of the rules of the modes while observing the rulings of intonation is not contrary to the revealed law in the view of the majority of scholars, and formulates five conditions under which this is so.