Al-Bazzi an Ibn Kathir

Ahmad al-Bazzi transmitted the reading of Abdullah ibn Kathir, the Meccan reader among the tabi'un generation whose name anchors one of the seven canonical readings. Al-Bazzi's own transmission is recorded at Mecca, the same reading centre as Ibn Kathir's, and stands alongside the transmission of Qunbul as the two riwayat that carry the Meccan reading forward.

The transmission recites the basmala between suras and includes the takbir, the declaration of God's greatness, from Surah al-Duha through to the end of the text, a feature it shares with Qunbul and one that marks the Meccan reading as a whole among the seven. It softens the second of two adjacent glottal stops rather than rendering both in full, and it does not apply imala, the inclination of long alif toward ya, anywhere in its recitation. Detached vowel lengthening is held to two counts against a fuller four or five counts at connected junctures, and the closing mim of plural pronouns is always sounded with a connecting vowel rather than left silent. No light pause is observed, and the greater assimilation known as idgham kabir is not applied. Verse numbering follows the Meccan count.

As one of Ibn Kathir's two transmitters, al-Bazzi's reading carries the standing of the seven, among the readings Ibn Mujahid recognised in the tenth century as mutawatir, transmitted by multiple independent chains too numerous to have been coordinated in error.