The Quran in the Ruways ‘an Ya‘qub riwaya

Ruways ‘an Ya‘qub is one of the two transmissions of the reading of Ya‘qub al-Hadrami, the leading reader of Basra and one of the ten canonical readers. Its transmitter, Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Mutawakkil al-Lu’lu’i, known as Ruways, a Basran reader who died in 852 (238 AH), was according to al-Dani one of Ya‘qub's most skilful students. Today it is mainly preserved in the teaching of the ten readings.

Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Hadrami (735–821; 117–205 AH), from a family of scholars, became the master of recitation in Basra after Abu ‘Amr, and long after his death the imam of the city's great mosque still recited only according to his reading. He had studied notably with Sallam al-Tawil, a student of ‘Asim and Abu ‘Amr, and Abu Hatim al-Sijistani considered him the most knowledgeable authority on the variant readings he had ever met. Ruways read directly with him and recited the whole Quran to him several times.

Ya‘qub says ‘alayhum, ‘alayhumā and fīhunna with a "u", keeps the separated madd short and adds an h to certain words when pausing (huwah, ‘ammah); he reads Māliki yawmi d-dīn with a long alif. Ruways differs from Rawh, the other transmitter, notably by pronouncing as-sirāṭ with a plain s, easing the second of two consecutive hamzas, and adding the pausal h to yā asafā or yā ḥasratā. Some recordings combine both transmitters: see Ruways and Rawh.

Reciters who have recorded it include Yousef Bin Noah Ahmad, Ahmed Aissa El Masarawi and Abdurrahim Abdussalam An-Nabulsi.