Could it be possible that the versions of the seven letters in the Quraysh dialect have not survived to the present day?

- The stage of reproduction of the Quran

- There are 3 different opinions about the duration of the permission to read/recite with 7 harfs/ahruf (letters/styles)​. 

- According to the first view, the permission of seven letters was completely abrogated in arda al-akhira (the last mutual recitation/presentation of the Quran). Sources report that the Quran that the Messenger of Allah presented to Jibril (Gabriel) twice in Ramadan before his death was in the Quraysh dialect.

- According to the second view, the seven-letter permission did not end but continued in the Mushafs of Uthman (ra) and in qira’ahs. According to this view, the seven letters were present in the Prophet’s “last presentation” and in the activity of the compilation of the Quran by Abu Bakr (ra) and Uthman (ra). In Abu Bakr’s compilation, the different scripts of the seven letters were written on the margins of the Mushaf. These different letters spread with the Mushafs sent by Uthman (ra) all around the Islamic land.

- According to the third view, the permission of seven letters was not abrogated completely, but only in terms of the spellings and qira’ahs that were contrary to the writing style of the Mushaf by the consensus of the Companions during the caliphate of Uthman (ra).

- As for my question, according to what I understand from the second view, some words in Uthman’s Mushaf should have been written in the Quraysh dialect, but they were written in different dialects due to the permission of 7 letters.
Then, according to this 2nd opinion, could it be possible that the words that were not written in the Quraysh dialect have not survived to the present day?

- I mean, could it be possible that because some words were not written in the Quraysh dialect, these words were forgotten and have not survived to the present day?

- As far as I understand, according to the 2nd opinion, could it be possible that different dialects were included in the mushafs reproduced during the caliphate of Uthman (ra), whether they fit the writing style of the mushaf or not?

- To sum up, according to the 2nd view, could it be possible that because some words were not written in the Quraysh dialect due to the permission, these words were forgotten and have not survived to the present day?

- I hope I have made myself clear. I would be grateful if you could evaluate it within the framework of the 2nd view.

Dear Brother / Sister,

The seven-letter permission was a permission given to people who had the problem of pronouncing the Quran according to the Quraysh dialect in the last two years of the Prophet (pbuh). A rukhsah (permission), which is the opposite of azimah (strict rule), is a permission given in extraordinary situations. This permission continued for a certain period of time after the Prophet (pbuh).

The most important thing to know here is what the content of the Seven Letters (Harfs/Ahruf/Styles) is. Very few of the qira’ahs stemming from the seven-letter permission are related to writing. Almost all of the seven letter qira’ahs are phonetic, that is, they are related to pronunciation and have nothing to do with writing. In other words, the shape and spelling of the word is the same, but the pronunciation is different.

Therefore, this reading has no reflection on writing. That needs to be known first.

On the other hand, there were recitations that were reflected in writing among the different qira’ahs, and they correspond to 15 or 20 percent of the entire qira’ah accumulation. There is no information on how they were included in the Mushaf, where the words of revelation were brought together during the caliphate of Abu Bakr (ra). The expression “written in the margins of the Mushaf” is not included in our primary sources. It can only be one of the possible interpretations, which may be true or false.

Besides, since oral culture was dominant at that time, writing was a secondary means of preservation. Thus, there may not have been a need to write down those qira’ahs as they were already in people’s memories.

However, the ongoing seven-letter permission began to pave the way for a number of problems during the caliphate of Uthman (ra), and people started to blame one another and even accuse one another of unbelief because of their qira’ah.

Thereupon, Uthman (ra) put an end to the seven-letter permission and demanded that the Quraysh dialect, in which the Quran was revealed in the language of the Prophet (pbuh), be taken as the basis. In the Mushaf prepared in this manner, the Quraysh Dialect was taken as the basis for the readings reflected in writing.

Those that were not reflected in writing continued in some way in people’s practices because it was quite difficult to control it.

On the other hand, the qira’ahs that were heard from the Prophet (pbuh) himself and reflected in writing, which are called grammatical qira’ahs in the terminology of qira’ah, were also written in the Mushaf. The method of writing them in the Mushaf was not much of a problem since vowel points and punctuation marks were not used because the word, which has the same shape, has a spelling suitable for different pronunciations. Besides, the people who taught the Quran did not teach it according to the Mushaf, but according to what they had in their memories. After a few centuries, in parallel with the development and widespread use of writing, people started to receive education through Mushafs and started to write Mushafs according to the qira’ah they followed.

There are some pronunciations in the qira’ahs that were not written on the same Mushaf because they were additional pronunciations, but that were distributed among the Mushafs sent to various regions.

To conclude, the different spellings stemming from the seven letters are not included in the Mushafs. The authentic qira’ahs heard from the Prophet (pbuh) are included in the Mushaf.

If it is asked, “Are there words in the Quran other than the Quraysh dialect?”, the answer is “yes, there are” because the Quraysh took those words and adopted them; besides, the dominant upper language or central language in the region is the Quraysh Dialect. It both gave its own words to other dialects and adopted some of the words from other dialects. Thus, the word became a part of the Quraysh Dialect.

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