The Quran in the Qalun ‘an Nafi‘ riwaya

Qalun ‘an Nafi‘ is the reading of Nafi‘, the leading reader of Medina, as transmitted by his stepson ‘Isa ibn Mina, known as Qalun (738–835; 120–220 AH), a reader and grammarian who was born and died in Medina. With that of Warsh, it is one of the two transmissions of Nafi‘, and it is today the usual reading of Libya and Tunisia.

The transmitter

A client (mawla) of the Banu Zuhra, Qalun began reading with Nafi‘, who had married his mother, in 150 AH — "more times than I can count", he said — and stayed at his side for another twenty years. Nafi‘ nicknamed him Qalun, "good" in Greek, for the quality of his recitation. He was so deaf that he could not hear a horn, yet he corrected his students' mistakes by reading their lips. He succeeded his teacher as the leading reader of Medina.

Nafi‘ (d. 785; 169 AH) had learned from some seventy Successors, including Abu Ja‘far Yazid ibn al-Qa‘qa‘, himself one of the ten readers, Shayba ibn Nisah and al-A‘raj; through Ibn ‘Abbas and Abu Hurayra, his reading goes back to Ubayy ibn Ka‘b and the Prophet.

Distinctive features

Qalun shares Nafi‘'s wording with Warsh, for example Maliki yawmi d-dīn (1:4) without the long alif, but his pronunciation is closer to that of Hafs: he pronounces silent hamzas (yu’minūna) and has none of Warsh's vowel transfer (naql), long lengthenings or light ra. His characteristic features include:

• a choice between a short (2 counts) and a medium (4 counts) separated madd;
• the option of extending the plural mim with a "u": ‘alayhimū;
• two consecutive hamzas separated by an alif, the second one eased (tas-hil), as in a’andhartahum;
• a vowelless ha in wa-hwa and fa-hya (for wa-huwa, fa-hiya).

Routes and spread

The Shatibiyya follows the route (tariq) of Abu Nashit, the one most widely taught; Ibn al-Jazari also retained the route of al-Hulwani. Qalun is the dominant reading in Libya and Tunisia, whose printed copies of the Quran follow it, and it is also read elsewhere in Africa; the King Fahd Complex in Medina publishes an edition as well.

Reciters who have recorded it include Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary, Ahmad Khader Al-Tarabulsi, Muhammad Al-Aalim Al-Dokali, Abdul Rashid Ali Sufi and Abu Abdullah Munir El Tounsi.