Hafs (709–796)
Born 709 CE, died 796 CE.
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), 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. 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. Eventually, Hafs' recitation of Aasim's method was made the official method of Egypt, having been formally adopted as the standard Egyptian printing of the Qur'an under the auspices of Fuad I of Egypt in 1923. 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.
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