I'm reading Dutton's paper on the seven ahruf. Here are some of my highlights
#QuranPreservation #YQGems
#QuranPreservation #YQGems
The summary of the paper is that the Quran in its early stages was more flexible in the earliest days of Islam. The initial allowance was reduced by later Caliphs under the direction of scholars. The Quran is seen as a multiform oral text with a degree of accepted variability
There are 7 agreed upon readings of the Quran (Qira'at). All seven are agreed upon by Muslims today. Where did this 7 come from? Ibn Mujahid (died 936). Why 7 when he had more to choose from? Nobody knows. Why did he chose 3 from kufah (Iraq)? Probably because he lived there! 
Already we see that this is a very human effort. Picking and choosing qira'at. The one that is ubiquitous today (probably 99% of printed Qurans) is one of the Kufan ones - Hafs en Asem. Not the Medinan one as you might have naively thought.
The other issue is that there is a gap of 50-150 years between these regional traditions (qira'at) took the form they did and 300 or so years before Ibn Mujahid delineated the 7 readings that are standard in the Muslim world today.
Even within a locality, like in Medina, there were differences. Nafi's reading is based on a blend of what his teachers taught!
Also, not everyone agreed with seven readings. Other scholars chose eight (such as Ibn Khalawayhi), or ten, or thirteen, or twenty...
What stands out to me is just how human this entire process is. When Mohammad Hijab asked Yasir Qadhi about recreating a blank mushaf verbatim from Allah without human intervention, he had problems answering because the whole process is full of arbitrary human decisions!
There are lots more gems in this paper which I will share in time.
