Thread by @PhDniX

Al-Farrāʾ's maʿānī al-qurʾān is an important early source of a somewhat systematic description of the Kufan readings. Usually what he reports agrees with what we find in the canon. But sometimes he deviates from it, like this discussion for Q29:66. He tells us:

"ʿĀṣim and al-ʾAʿmaš recited wa-l-yatamattaʿū, taking it as a command or rebuke, with no vowel on the Lām, and the people of the Ḥijāz read wa-li-yatamattaʿū with a kasrah (on the lām) taking it to mean kay 'in order to'"

But that's not how ʿĀṣim is said to read!

Indeed at least for the Medinan Nāfiʿ, disagreement is reported for reading wa-li-yatamattaʿū. In canonical transmissions both the Medinans Waṛš from Nāfiʿ and ʾAbū Jaʿfar indeed read wa-li-yatamattaʿū as al-Farrāʾ reports (but Ibn Kaṯīr, the other Hijazi does not).

And indeed transmissions for al-ʾAʿmaš likewise report that he read as al-Farrāʾ describes. However, none of these transmissions agree with al-Farrāʾ that ʿĀṣim read this way!

al-Dānī in his monumental Jāmiʿ al-Bayān however reports disagreement on this word for ʿĀṣim.

The reading that al-Farrāʾ attributes to ʿĀṣim is indeed transmitted by the canonical reader al-Kisāʾī on the authority of Šuʿbah ʿan ʿĀṣim. As al-Kisāʾī was al-Farrāʾ's direct teacher he almost certainly got it from him.

Considering how early the source is, one step removed from Šuʿbah ʿan ʿĀṣim, it strikes me as likely that this is in fact the correct transmission, and that ʿĀṣim (or at least Šuʿbah) indeed recited wa-l-yatamattaʿū. The now-canonical reading may have become dominant only later

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