Qirāʾāt and their transmission

Isnād of the Ten Qirāʾāt

The ten readings, their twenty rāwīs and the rāwīs' ṭuruq, from the Prophet ﷺ downwards, shown five ways. Archived 19 October 2026; checked against the sources and revised 20 October 2026.

Every view below shows the same people, down to the ṭuruq of each rāwī. Dates are death dates in hijri years; “c.” marks an approximate date. Choose the view that suits the question you have:

• Inverted tree: the whole transmission at once, the Prophet ﷺ at the top.
• Outline: the same tree as an indented list that folds open, easiest on a phone.
• Radial: the Prophet ﷺ at the centre and each generation as a ring. Tap a name to light up its chain back to the centre.
• Imam by Imam: one reading at a time, with all of that Imam's chains (not only his best-known line) and his rāwīs and ṭuruq.
• Table: every ṭarīq in one searchable list.

The Prophet ﷺCompanionSuccessor or teacherImamRāwīṬarīqLink to a branch shown elsewhere◇ not confirmed in the sources checked

The ten readings at a glance

The first seven were grouped by Ibn Mujāhid (d. 324) and versified by al-Shāṭibī (d. 590) in the Shāṭibiyya. Ibn al-Jazarī (d. 833) added the last three in al-Durra al-muḍiyya and set out all ten, with their ṭuruq, in al-Nashr and the Ṭayyibat al-Nashr. Below the ṭuruq shown here, al-Nashr branches into about 980 paths through particular books and teachers, which this chart does not attempt. Two people appear in two roles: Khalaf b. Hishām is Ḥamza's rāwī and the tenth Imam, and al-Dūrī narrates both Abū ʿAmr and al-Kisāʾī.

The Companions behind the readings

Most chains of the ten readings run back to a small group of Companions. Ubayy b. Kaʿb, Zayd b. Thābit, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī and Ibn Masʿūd stand behind almost all of them, with ʿUmar, Abū al-Dardāʾ and Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī in some chains. Zayd b. Thābit (d. 45) wrote down the revelation for the Prophet ﷺ, gathered the Qurʾān into one collection under Abū Bakr and led the committee that made ʿUthmān's copies; his students include Ibn ʿAbbās, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī and Abū al-ʿĀliya, through whom his reading reaches Ibn Kathīr, Abū ʿAmr, ʿĀṣim and the readings that descend from them.

How this chart was checked

Each reading was checked against its section of al-Nashr (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya edition, vol. 1, read on IslamWeb) and, for teachers, students and death dates, against Ghāyat al-nihāya (Bergsträsser's edition, cited as GN volume/page). Where the two disagree on a date, the chart gives the date Ibn al-Jazarī prefers and notes the alternative.

The check changed the chart in these ways: corrected death dates for ʿUbayd b. al-Ṣabbāḥ (235), al-Ṭalḥī (252), the younger Ibn Miqsam under Ruways (380), Ibn Abī ʿUmar (352), Abū Hurayra (57/58), Abū al-ʿĀliya (90) and al-Qawwās (240, or 245); restored intermediaries that had been left out (Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar between Ibn Jammāz and his ṭuruq; Qālūn and al-Ḥulwānī behind Ibn Wardān's; the order Ibn Kathīr → Ismāʿīl al-Qisṭ → ʿIkrima, Wahb and others → al-Bazzī); gave Isḥāq al-Warrāq his three ṭuruq; added principal teachers the first version lacked (Ṭalḥa b. Muṣarrif for Ḥamza, ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar for al-Kisāʾī, Abū Zayd Saʿīd b. Aws for Khalaf, Abū al-Ashhab for Yaʿqūb, Naṣr b. ʿĀṣim for Abū ʿAmr, Abū Hurayra among Zayd's students); removed two links al-Nashr does not support (al-Sulamī as a teacher of Yaḥyā b. Waththāb, and ʿAlī as Ibn ʿAbbās's teacher, which is Ubayy and Zayd); marked Khalaf's link to al-Kisāʾī as the variants only; and dropped “disputed” from Ibn ʿĀmir's reading with Abū al-Dardāʾ, which Ibn al-Jazarī accepts.

People in the chart

Each link opens a Wikipedia search for the name, since these names are spelled differently from one article to the next.

Related on this site

• The Qira'at Identified in the Qur'anic Manuscripts (Islamic Awareness), in the manuscript catalogue
• Manuscripts of the Qur'an Attributable to the First Century of the Hijra, study notes
• Marijn van Putten and the QurCan project, on the reading traditions before the canon
• Corpus Coranicum, which records variant readings alongside the manuscripts
• Quran Hub, with the timeline of the Qur'an's compilation

Sources and further reading

• Ibn al-Jazarī, al-Nashr fī al-qirāʾāt al-ʿashr, chapter on the isnāds of the ten readings: text on IslamWeb
• Ibn al-Jazarī, Ghāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ (biographies and death dates of the readers)
• Ibn al-Jazarī, Ṭayyibat al-Nashr and al-Durra al-muḍiyya; al-Shāṭibī, Ḥirz al-amānī (the Shāṭibiyya)
• Ten readers and transmitters and Seven readers, Wikipedia
• طرق رواية قالون عن نافع: أبو نشيط والحلواني, on the two ṭuruq of Qālūn
• Ṭayyibat al-Nashr: tree of the rāwīs, nquran.com
• A Brief Guide to the Ten Readings (Qira'at), Quran.com