Hafs (Abū ʽAmr Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Abi Dawud al-Asadī al-Kūfī (Arabic: أبو عمرو حفص بن سليمان بن المغيرة الأسدي الكوفي, 706–796 AD; 90–180 Anno Hegirae),[1][2] according to Islamic tradition, was one of the primary transmitters of one of the seven canonical methods of Qur'an recitation (qira'at). His method via his teacher Aasim ibn Abi al-Najud has become the most popular method across the majority of the Muslim world.[3]
In addition to being the student of Aasim, Hafs was also his son-in-law.[4] Having been born in Baghdad, Hafs eventually moved to Mecca where he popularized his father-in-law's recitation method.[4]
Eventually, Hafs' recitation of Aasim's method was made the official method of Egypt,[5] having been formally adopted as the standard Egyptian printing of the Qur'an under the auspices of Fuad I of Egypt in 1923.[4] The majority of copies of the Quran today follow the reading of Hafs. In North and West Africa there is a bigger tendency to follow the reading of Warsh.[6]
It is, alongside the Hafs 'an 'Asim tradition which represents the recitational tradition of Kufa, one of the two major oral transmission of the Quran in the Muslim World.[10] The influential standard Quran of Cairo that was published in 1924 is based on Hafs 'an ʻAsim's recitation.
