Uṣūl, reader by reader

The reading almost everyone has heard. Moderate throughout: a four- or five-count separated madd, a clean hamzah, no inclination to speak of.

Unhurried but not slow. Qālūn permits both a short and a medium separated madd, and both connecting and silencing the plural mīm — so a reciter following him has genuine choices to make, and the tables often show two numerals against his name for exactly that reason..

The most distinctive of the ten to an untrained ear, and the one with the longest treatment in the book — twelve pages against one or two for most. Everything is long: six-count separated and connected madd, and alone among the ten he stretches madd al-badal.

The briskest of the ten. He does not lengthen the separated madd at all, and connects the plural mīm consistently — so his recitation moves quickly but with the suffixes given their full weight.

Abū ʿAmr through al-Dūrī. Like Qālūn he has a choice of separated madd, 2 or 4, and does not apply the major assimilation that marks his fellow transmitter..

Abū ʿAmr through al-Sūsī, and the one reading defined by a single rule: al-idghām al-kabīr. He merges letters that both carry vowels, across the whole Qurʾān, which changes the texture of the recitation more than any measure of madd could..

Ibn ʿĀmir through Hishām, the Damascene reading. Middle of the road on madd — four counts throughout — with a distinctive treatment of the hamzah when pausing that he shares with Ḥamzah..

Ibn ʿĀmir's other transmitter. Same madd measures as Hishām; the two diverge on particular words rather than on the systematic rules..

ʿĀṣim's other transmitter. Shares Ḥafṣ's madd measures exactly, so the two part company on lexical readings rather than on the systematic rules..

Ḥamzah's reading is the most demanding of the ten. Six-count madd everywhere it can apply, full inclination on the long ā, and an elaborate set of rules for pausing on hamzah that has generated a literature of its own.

Ḥamzah's second transmitter. Shares the six-count madd and the ishmām of the ṣād; the two part on a limited set of particulars..

Known above all for inclination. Al-Kisāʾī tilts the long ā extensively, and has a rule of his own for the feminine ending when pausing — inclined, except after ten specific letters.

The first of the three that complete the ten, and a Medinan reading. Brisk like Ibn Kathīr — a two-count separated madd — with the plural mīm consistently connected, and a brief silence on the detached letters that open certain sūrahs rather than running them together..

A Basran reading, and brisk: two-count separated madd. Distinctive in placing a ḍammah on the pronoun hāʾ where most readers give it a kasrah — ʿalayhum rather than ʿalayhim..

The tenth reader — the same Khalaf who transmits from Ḥamzah, but here reading in his own right, and the two are not the same. As an independent reader his madd is four counts, not Ḥamzah's six.