Alam al-Dîn al-Sakhâwî (D. 643/1245) and his place in the science of qirâat

'Alam al-Dîn al-Sakhâwî lived in Egypt and Damascus between the years of Hijri 558-643 (1163-1245) during the reign of the Ayyubids. In this study, after briefly mentioning the political, cultural and educational history of the Ayyubids, the life and works of Sakhâwî, the leading qirâat scholar of the 12th century, are discussed. Sakhâwî gained his real fame with the first commentary that he wrote on "Shâtibiyyah", which is one of the main texts of the history of qirâat. This commentary of Sakhâwî is his work called "Fath al-Wasîd fî Sharh al-Kasîd" which introduces "Shâtibiyyah" about qirâat sab'ah (seven recitations) to the world of science. In addition, Sakhâwî is the author of the famous work "Jamâl al-Kurrâ' wa-Kamâl al-Ikrâ' " on the sciences of the Qur'ân. In this research, the nature of the qirâat sab'ah and their distribution in the mushafs, the soundness criteria of the qirâats and Sakhâwî's view on the concept of hujjat were examined. In particular, his first mention of the concept of mutawatir in qirâats and the effect of this view on later scholars are emphasized. It is important that Sakhâwî personally sees the mushaf that sent by Caliph ʿUthmân ibn ʿAffân to Damascus; furthermore, his writing of "al-Wasîlah ilâ Kashf al-'Aqîlah" on orthography enabled us to reach original information about the orthography of the mushafs. It is aimed here to examine the approach of Sakhâwî, who left an important corpus to the next generations in studies of the Qur'ân, to the important issues of the science of qirâat and the method of handling them. In addition to his studies on the science of qirâat, both theoretical and practical, his place and position in this field have been tried to be determined.