The "Lost" Length of Surah al-Ahzab: Ubayy ibn Ka'b's Report and the Doctrine of Naskh al-Tilawa

A Question Between Two Reciters

Medina, in the years after the Prophet's death. An old man sits across from a visitor from Kufa. The old man is no ordinary Companion: he is Ubayy ibn Ka'b — a chief of the Ansar, a scribe of the revelation, and the man about whom the hadith literature records the Prophet's words: "The best reciter of my community is Ubayy." In Sahih al-Bukhari, the Prophet instructs that the Quran be learned from four men — and Ubayy ibn Ka'b is one of the four.

The visitor is no ordinary student either: Zirr ibn Hubaysh, a Kufan master of recitation who would live past a hundred years and teach some of the most famous Quran reciters of the following generation. He studied under both Ubayy ibn Ka'b and Abdullah ibn Mas'ud.