Hafs

Hafs (Abū ʽAmr Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Abi Dawud al-Asadī al-Kūfī, Arabic: أبو عمرو حفص بن سليمان بن المغيرة الأسدي الكوفي, 706–796 AD; 90–180 AH),¹² according to Islamic tradition, was one of the primary transmitters of one of the seven canonical methods of Qur'an recitation (qira'at). His method via his teacher Aasim ibn Abi al-Najud has become the most popular method across the majority of the Muslim world.³

In addition to being the student of Aasim, Hafs was also his stepson. Having been born in Baghdad, Hafs eventually moved to Mecca where he popularized his father-in-law's recitation method.⁴

Eventually, Hafs' recitation of Aasim's method was made the official method of Egypt,⁵ having been formally adopted as the standard Egyptian printing of the Qur'an under the auspices of Fuad I of Egypt in 1923.⁴ The majority of copies of the Quran today follow the reading of Hafs. In North and West Africa there is a bigger tendency to follow the reading of Warsh.⁶

Hafs recitation

Of all the canonical recitation traditions, only the Kufan tradition of Hafs included the as a separate verse in .