Solecism (Laḥn =Khaṭā') in the Reading of the Qur ān and the Typology of its Causes

Reading the Qur’ān, which is obligatory for every Muslim, enjoys indispensible principles and rules in order for the Qur’ānic letters, words, and sentences to be read correctly and the wording and meaning of the Qur’ān to be pronounced and transferred properly. Not reading these elements correctly is called laḥn and there are certain causes for it, whose recognition would greatly help the pathology of the mistakes of reading the Qur’ān by the reciters.In this article, it is first tried to briefly explain laḥn in terms of terminology, to mention different types of laḥn from different perspectives, and then after taking a glance at the history of this discourse, to mention various types of causes and reasons for the occurrence of laḥn in reading the Qur’ān. Some of these causes include the reciter’s unfamiliarity with rules of reading, the reciter’s unfamiliarity with interpretation, the reciter’s unfamiliarity with the morphological and syntactic rules, the reciter’s unfamiliarity with the melody of expression (tanghīm), orthographical problems, and so forth.