A digital history of qira'at centered on tabaqat literature

Atlas of Qira'at Studies

A scholarly digital humanities project that renders teacher-student relationships, the qira'at memory of cities, and transregional scholarly mobility visible as interconnected networks.

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Explore the Project Atlas Axes

4Main Axes

SNANetwork Analysis

TabaqatData Basis

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About

The Atlas of Qira'at Studies seeks to reinterpret the historical trajectory of qira'at, one of the most deeply rooted disciplines of Islamic scholarship, through the lens of tabaqat literature.

The project aims to make teacher-student relationships among scholars tangible as networks through the tools of digital humanities, while also highlighting the qira'at memory of cities and patterns of scholarly mobility across regions.

The project draws on academic initiatives developed within the Department of Qur'an Recitation and Qira'at Studies at Marmara University Faculty of Theology. The intellectual basis of this work was shaped by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Emin Maşalı's vision of reading qira'at history through tabaqat literature.

The sustained collaborative effort, scholarly consultation, and close teamwork of Eren Pilgir and Furkan Akbulut over more than two years have made it possible to transform theoretical insights into a concrete digital platform.

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Core Questions

How does teacher-student connectivity emerge when all qurrāʾ are considered together?

How did teacher-student relationships shape the qira'at accumulation of cities?

Which cities historically stood out in the formation of qira'at knowledge?

Which qurrāʾ played formative roles in the construction of scholarly basins within cities?

How did qira'at transmissions occur between scholarly basins?

To what extent were the preferences of qira'at scholars consistent with the qira'at understanding of their period?

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Project Stages

Qurrāʾ

Biographical data of scholars who transmitted qira'at variants are examined, and teacher-student relationships are mapped through digital network analysis.

Periods

The history of qira'at is subjected to a new tabaqat-centered periodization, and processes of school formation are situated within their historical context.

Cities

Centers where qira'at education concentrated are read through data-driven analysis of scholarly journeys and geographic mobility.

Readings

The variants systematized through person, time, and place variables, together with the preferences of qira'at imams, are classified within a digital database.

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Research Scope and Method

Primary Data Source

Ibn al-Jazari's Ghāyat al-Nihāya fī Tabaqāt al-Qurrāʾ has been selected as the main source for identifying teacher-student relationships. Other tabaqat sources will also be used while constructing biographies.

Social Network Analysis

The project uses Social Network Analysis to transform complex scholarly relations into more legible networks. This method will be employed to reveal the teacher-student network in qira'at in a data-driven way.

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Goals and Objectives

To identify teacher-student relationships among scholars and make the transmission networks of qira'at visible.

To evaluate the quality of qira'at transmission by taking the concepts of tahammul and adāʾ into account.

To analyze the qira'at memory and scholarly accumulation of cities within a historical relationship between space and knowledge.

To interpret qira'at mobility between scholarly basins and cities through geographic routes.

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Project Team

The Atlas of Qira'at Studies is taking shape as an interdisciplinary team effort that reinterprets the classical tabaqat tradition through digital methods.

Advisors

The advisory team shaping the scholarly and digital framework of the project.