The Quran in the Khalaf ‘an Hamza riwaya

Khalaf ‘an Hamza is one of the two transmissions of the reading of Hamza al-Zayyat, a reader of Kufa. Its transmitter, Abu Muhammad Khalaf ibn Hisham al-Bazzar (767–844; 150–229 AH), a leading scholar of Baghdad, also made his own selection of readings, counted among the ten canonical readings. Seldom recited today, this transmission is mainly taught in circles of Quranic readings.

Hamza ibn Habib (699–773; 80–156 AH) owed the name al-Zayyat to the oil trade, carrying oil from Iraq to Hulwan. He became the leading reader of Kufa after ‘Asim and al-A‘mash; among his teachers were al-A‘mash, Ibn Abi Layla and Ja‘far al-Sadiq, and his reading goes back notably to Ibn Mas‘ud. Both his transmitters received it from his student Sulaym ibn ‘Isa. Khalaf knew the Quran by heart at ten, and Muslim narrates hadith from him in his Sahih.

Hamza joins the surahs without a basmala, says ‘alayhum, ilayhum and ladayhum with a "u", gives the madd a long 6 counts, applies full imala to alifs such as that of al-hudā and reads Maliki yawmi d-dīn without the long alif. Khalaf makes a brief pause (sakt) on a silent consonant followed by a hamza, even across words, as in ‘adhābun alīm, pronounces aṣ-ṣirāṭ with a ṣ tinged with z, and assimilates a silent nun into waw and ya without nasalisation. For the other transmitter, see Khallad; for Khalaf's own reading, Ishaq al-Warraq.

Reciters who have recorded it include Mishary Rashid Alafasy, Abdul Rashid Ali Sufi, Yousef Bin Noah Ahmad and Abdurrahim Abdussalam An-Nabulsi.