Wisdom of the 7 Ahruf

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The wisdom of revealing the Quran according to the seven ahruf

The wisdom of revealing the Noble Quran according to the seven ahruf comes down to this: the Arabs, among whom the Quran was revealed in their own language, had different tongues and varied dialects, and it was hard for each of them to abandon his dialect, the one in which he had grown up and to which his tongue had become accustomed for speech, to the point that it became one of his natures and one of his dispositions, so that he could not turn away from it to another.

Had Allah Most High charged them with contradicting their dialects, it would have been painful for them and would have become a duty too hard to bear. His mercy, Most High, toward this ummah therefore required that He make light and easy for them the memorization of His Book and the recitation of its constitution, just as He made easy for them the affair of their religion. He then permitted His Prophet to make his ummah recite the Quran according to seven ahruf, and the Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him and his family) made each tribe recite according to what suited its tongue and agreed with its speech¹.

It may also be, among other aspects of the wisdom, that this constitutes a miracle for the Prophet attesting the truth of his message: the Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him and his family) recites the Noble Quran according to these seven ahruf and these multiple dialects, while he is the unlettered Prophet who knew only the dialect of Quraysh.