Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an

Understanding the variant readings of the Qur’an and their transmission is arguably one of the most challenging topics within the sub-branches of [Ulum al-Qur’an. They are challenging not so much due to their esoteric nature as to the lack of clarity surrounding this topic. There are multiple factors which contribute to this lack of clarity. Nasser’s book attempts to look at this and addresses some of the ambiguities relating to the variant readings of the Qur’an. This book is not the first modern study on the topic. Studies on the variant readings of the Qur’an have attracted the attention of scholars, past and present, who contributed a vast array of studies ranging from classical manuals to doctoral theses. Most of these studies focus primarily on understanding the topic from historical, grammatical, philological, phonetic, literary, and theological perspectives. Nasser attempts to study the transmission of the variant readings of the Qur’an and the mechanism through which some were established as canonical whereas others were deemed to be non-canonical. He also tackles the question of tawatur and how its application was successful in the transmission of the variant Qur’anic readings. One of the unique aspects of this book is the author’s comparison of the variant readings of the Qur’an with the variants of early Arabic poetry.