The Seven readers (Arabic: القراء السبعة) are seven Qāriʾs who mastered the Qira'at and historically transmitted the Quran recitations in an approved and confirmed manner.
[6] These ten qira'ates are issued from the original seven which are confirmed (mutawatir) (Arabic: قِرَاءَاتٌ مُتَوَاتِرَةٌ) by these seven Quran readers who lived in the second and third century of Islam.
[7] It is the scholar Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid, who lived in the fourth century of Islam, who first approved of these seven qira'at, so that the actual versions of Quran readings transmitted to us are part of the system of qira'at consisting in a hierarchy passing from qira'ates to riwayates who have turuq or lines of transmission, and passed down to wujuh.
[8] The seven readings of the Qira'at were first limited and noted by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid, who canonized them in the 8th century CE, in his book called Kitab al-Sab’ fil-qirā’āt.
[10] In a poem with 1173 lines, the scholar Qasim ibn Firrū ibn Khalaf Al-Shatibi Al Andalusi, outlined the two most famous ways passed down from each of seven readers, whose title is Ash-Shatibiyyah [ar] and where he documented the rules of recitation of each one of these seven readers.