The Quran in the Shu‘ba ‘an ‘Asim riwaya

Shu‘ba ‘an ‘Asim is the second transmission of the reading of ‘Asim, the leading reader of Kufa, alongside that of Hafs. Its transmitter, Abu Bakr Shu‘ba ibn ‘Ayyash al-Asadi (714–809; 95–193 AH), a Kufan reader and hadith narrator, studied directly with ‘Asim. Overshadowed by Hafs, it lives on today mainly in the teaching of the readings.

According to a report preserved by the biographers, ‘Asim (d. 745; 127 AH) taught Shu‘ba the reading he had received from Zirr ibn Hubaysh, going back to ‘Abd Allah ibn Mas‘ud, and taught Hafs the one he had from Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, going back to ‘Ali. Shu‘ba read the whole Quran with ‘Asim several times; even his name is disputed, and he is often known simply by his kunya, Abu Bakr ibn ‘Ayyash. Renowned for his devotion, he stopped teaching seven years before his death in Kufa.

According to al-Dhahabi, Hafs differs from him in more than five hundred words. Shu‘ba reads, for instance, ruḍwān with a "u" where Hafs says riḍwān, pronounces Zakariyyā’ with a final hamza, and applies imala to only a handful of words, including ramā (8:17) and rān (83:14). Like Hafs, he gives the madd a medium length, reads Māliki yawmi d-dīn with a long alif and recites the basmala between surahs. Some recordings combine both transmissions: see Shu‘ba and Hafs.

Reciters who have recorded it include Mishary Rashid Alafasy, Adel Al-Kalbani, Abdul Rashid Ali Sufi and Mahmoud El Sheimy.