The Quran in the Ibn Jammaz ‘an Abi Ja‘far riwaya

Ibn Jammaz ‘an Abi Ja‘far is one of the two transmissions of the reading of Abu Ja‘far, the leading reader of Medina before Nafi‘ and one of the ten canonical readers. Its transmitter, Abu al-Rabi‘ Sulayman ibn Jammaz al-Zuhri, a Medinan reader who died shortly after 786 (170 AH), read with Abu Ja‘far and Shayba ibn Nisah and then with Nafi‘. Today it is mainly preserved in the teaching of the ten readings.

Abu Ja‘far Yazid ibn al-Qa‘qa‘ (d. 747; 130 AH), a Successor and one of Nafi‘'s teachers, had read with ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Ayyash, Ibn ‘Abbas and Abu Hurayra, all students of Ubayy ibn Ka‘b. A respected and precise teacher, Ibn Jammaz taught both the reading of Abu Ja‘far and that of Nafi‘. His transmission came down through the great Medinan reader Isma‘il ibn Ja‘far, then through al-Hashimi and al-Duri, the transmitter of Abu ‘Amr and al-Kisa’i. Ibn al-Jazari set it down in his poem al-Durra.

Ibn Jammaz shares Abu Ja‘far's features with Ibn Wardan: a short pause (sakt) on each of the separate letters that open certain surahs (alif — lām — mīm), a short separated madd, the plural mim extended (‘alayhimū), a silent hamza turned into a long vowel (yūminūna), and Maliki yawmi d-dīn without the long alif. The two differ only on a few words: according to the Durra, Ibn Jammaz says yarḍah lakum (39:7) where Ibn Wardan says yarḍahū lakum.

Reciters who have recorded it include Yousef Bin Noah Ahmad, Ahmed Aissa El Masarawi and Mohammed Mustafa Al-Zayat.