Readings · a Light

Umar tried to stop a man reciting and was corrected

Umar ibn al-Khattab heard Hisham ibn Hakim reciting Surah al-Furqan in a way he had not been taught. He waited for the prayer to finish, took him by the cloak and marched him to the Prophet ﷺ. Both men recited. Both were told they were right. The Prophet ﷺ then said the Qur'an was sent down in seven ahruf and they should recite whichever was easier. What an harf is has been argued for twelve centuries: dialects, wordings, a category of permitted variation, something else again. Al-Suyuti collected dozens of opinions on it. The report stands in the strongest collections, and its plain effect was to license difference in a community newly unified around a book.

Umar and Hisham ibn Hakim, Madinah

Source · Sahih al-Bukhari 4992