The Quran in the As-Susi ‘an Abi ‘Amr riwaya

Al-Susi ‘an Abi ‘Amr is the reading of Abu ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ala’, the leading reader of Basra, as transmitted by Abu Shu‘ayb Salih ibn Ziyad al-Susi, the master of Quran reading in Raqqa on the Euphrates, who died aged nearly ninety at the beginning of 261 AH (874). Less widespread than the transmission of al-Duri, it lives on today mainly in the teaching of the readings.

Like al-Duri, al-Susi received the reading of Abu ‘Amr (d. 770; 154 AH) from his student Yahya ibn al-Mubarak al-Yazidi, of whom he was one of the foremost pupils; he also heard hadith from Sufyan ibn ‘Uyayna, and the hadith scholar al-Nasa’i read the Quran with him. Through Abu ‘Amr's many teachers in Mecca, Medina, Kufa and Basra, the reading goes back to Ibn ‘Abbas and Ubayy ibn Ka‘b.

Two features make it easy to recognise. The first is the major assimilation (al-idgham al-kabir): a voweled consonant merges into an identical or similar consonant at the start of the next word, as in ar-raḥīm-māliki (1:3–4) or fīh-hudan (2:2). The second is that almost every silent hamza becomes a long vowel: yu’minūna becomes yūminūna, and bi’sa, bīsa. Al-Susi also keeps the separated madd short (2 counts) and shares Abu ‘Amr's imalas, as in an-nāri.

Reciters who have recorded it include Abdul Rashid Ali Sufi, Salah Al-Hashem, Waleed Idrees Al-Maneese and Yousef Bin Noah Ahmad.