Partitioning the Qur'an Into Sections, and Reading it For the Dead

Question :

Is it permissible to partition the Qur'an into thirty sections, with each section printed separately, so that one section may contain part of a verse while the next section contains the rest of it? In some gatherings, each person present reads from one of the sections, and within half an hour, the Qur'an is completed, and the people present intend that the reward for their collective recitation should go to the dead; what is the ruling regarding this practice?

Question :

First, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah used to divide the Qur'an by chapters and verses, and not by the number of letters. They divided the Qur'an into seven. sections, and each one of the Companions, for the most part, would finish the entire Qur'an every seven nights.

Ahmad and Abu Dawud recorded that "Aws bin Abu 'Aws said that he asked the Prophet's Companions, "Into how many sections do you partition the Qur'an?" Three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen these were their answers. And they divided the Mufasal Surahs into a section alone.

As for separating the Qur'an into thirty or sixty sections, based on the number of letters, this is a practice that started in Iraq, by the order of Al-Hajjaj; it later spread from Iraq to the rest of the Muslim world.

The former division, though, is better, because it is related from the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, and their followers, and because a complete meaning or a complete story is realized at the end of one of the seven sections. On the other hand, what often happens in the division of Al-Hajjaj is that a section ends, but the story or complete meaning does not.

You mentioned that a part of a verse will be in one section and the rest of it will be in the next section; in the thirty part division of the Qur'an this never actually happens, and even if it did happen, it would not be permissible. Second, the Companions never used to assign a particular section to a different individual from among them, so that as a group they finish the Qur'an and confer the rewards for their recitation to the dead. Rather, each one of them would read from the Qur'an what he was able to or would read the entire Qur'an in a certain number of nights or days, hoping not that. the reward thereof would go to others, but that they would be rewarded themselves. Nor is it established in the Sunnah that the Prophet ever read the Qur'an on behalf of a dead person. All good comes through following the Messenger of Allah and following the guidance of the four rightly-guided Khalifahs. May Allâh send peace and blessings upon Muhammad, his family, and his Companions.

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