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CONCLUSION The Sunnī scholar Ibn Qutaybah received his knowledge of various Islamic sciences from scholars known for their attachment to the Sunnah. He learned Sunnī theology from Ish.āq ibn Rāhawayh, Sunnī tradition from Abū H.ātim al-Sijistānī and philology from al-„Abbās ibn al-Faraj alRiyāshī who had transmitted the works of Abū „Ubaydah and al-As.ma„ī who were teachers of Ibn Qutaybah of the second degree in philology. When al-Mutawakkil was appointed as a caliph in 232/846 and changed the ideology of the state from that of the Mu‘tazilah to the Sunnī orthodoxy, Ibn Qutaybah found himself favoured by the new government. He was made qād.ī of Dīnawar by the newly appointed vizier „Abd Allāh ibn Yah.yá ibn Khāqān in 236/851. Ibn Qutaybah was undisputedly the greatest man of letters in the Arabic language chronologically after al-Jāh.iz., and his contribution in the field of Qur‟ānic exegesis cannot be underestimated. In the introduction of his work Ta’wīl he stated that the book was a collection of interpretations of difficult passages of the Qur‟ān with explanations based on Arabic expression. Yet this statement does not necessarily imply that he merely acted a transmitter of the sciences of the Qur‟ān from the previous generation to his generation without giving his own interpretation. Some interpretations were taken from scholars whom he mentioned by name; others were adopted by him without attributing any source. Yet, we can trace these interpretations back to some of his teachers, such Abū „Ubaydah and al-Farrā‟. However, there were many other philological interpretations which seemed to be purely his own, and were cited by many authors of later generations, such as Ibn al-Jawzī, alQurt.ubī and others. One of the interpretations attributed to Ibn Qutaybah alone was his view on the seven ah.ruf. According to Ibn Qutaybah, these seven letters were seven aspects of variant readings, as follows: (1) The variant i‘rāb of a word or the vowelisation of its letters without changing its s.ūrah, such as the variant reading yujāzā and al-kafūru for respectively nujāzī and alkafūra in the verse wa hal nujāzī illā ’l-kafūra (Q. 34:17); the first reading belonged to Ibn Kathīr, Nāfi„ Abū „Amr and Ibn „Āmir, whereas the second belonged to H.amzah, al-Kisā‟ī and H.afs.; (2) The variant i‘rāb of a word and the vowelisation of its letters which changed its meaning only and not its s.ūrah, such as rabbunā bā‘ada for rabbanā bā‘id (Q. 34: 19); the latter was the reading of Nāfi„, „Ās.im, Ibn „Āmir, H.amzah and al-