Khallad, and the Reading He Shares With Khalaf

Khallad ibn Khalid transmitted the reading of Hamza al-Kufi, recorded here with Kufa as its reading centre, and stands beside Khalaf's transmission as the second of the two riwayat carrying Hamza's reading forward.

Khallad's transmission largely converges with Khalaf's on Hamza's characteristic features: it joins consecutive suras without the basmala between them, lightens the hamza at a pause, applies imala extensively, and lengthens both detached and connected vowel junctures to six counts, the longest duration among the seven readings. The closing mim of plural pronouns is left silent, the greater assimilation is not applied, the takbir plays no part in the reading, and verse numbering follows the Kufan count. The one point on which the two transmitters of Hamza's reading are recorded as differing is the light pause: Khalaf observes one before a quiescent glottal stop, where Khallad's transmission observes none.

That single point of difference is characteristic of how the two riwayat of a seven canon reading typically relate to one another: substantial agreement on the reading's defining features, with a small number of specific junctures where the two transmitted chains diverge. Khallad's reading carries the standing of the seven, among those Ibn Mujahid recognised in the tenth century as mutawatir on the strength of multiple independent chains.