Ibn al-Jazari

Shams al-Din Abu al-Khayr Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Jazari (751-833 AH / 1350-1429 CE) was the great synthesizer of the Islamic science of qira'at - the variant canonical "readings" or recitations of the Qur'an, differences of vowelling and pronunciation transmitted from the early reciters. Reports place his birth in Damascus, where, after memorizing the Qur'an in his teens, he studied recitation under some forty teachers in Syria, the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina), and Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria). He became Shaykh al-Qurra' (head of the reciters) of Damascus, founded a Dar al-Qur'an (a school for reciters) there, and is reported to have served as a judge (qadi).

His career was reshaped by upheaval. He left Damascus for the Ottoman lands, honoured at the court of Sultan Bayezid I at Bursa. After the conqueror Timur defeated Bayezid (1402), tradition holds that Ibn al-Jazari was taken eastward and feted at Samarqand; he later settled in Shiraz, where a Timurid prince appointed him judge. There he founded another Dar al-Qur'an and died, reportedly aged about eighty.

His enduring achievement is codification: al-Nashr fi al-qira'at al-'ashr and its verse-summary al-Tayyiba fixed the ten canonical readings as a structured system, while Ghayat al-Nihaya fi tabaqat al-qurra' is a biographical dictionary of the reciters. Later authorities such as al-Suyuti regarded him as the foremost voice in the field. His introductory poem al-Jazariyya on tajwid (rules of recitation) is still memorized today.