Shaykh Nur al-Din al-Dabba نور الدين علي بن محمد الضباع

Shaykh Nur al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad al-Dabba rahimahullah (1278-1376 AH / 1861-1956 CE) was the preeminent Egyptian authority on the science of Quranic recitation in the early twentieth century. He served as the chief verifier of the Egyptian official standard mushaf, playing a central role in the establishment of the canonical printed Quranic text that came to be used across the Muslim world. He was also the teacher of a full generation of contemporary masters of the ten qiraat, transmitting an unbroken chain of recitation in the major traditions. His scholarly writings on the ten qiraat and the principles of tajwid remain standard references in the discipline. Among his works is a commentary on Tuhfat al-Atfal, the sixty-one-verse rajaz didactic poem of Shaykh Sulayman al-Jamzuri (composed 1198 AH), which covers the core chapters of tajwid: the rules of the quiescent nun and tanwin, the quiescent mim, the lam of the divine name, and the categories of madd. Al-Dabba's commentary unfolds each ruling with Quranic examples, combining the precision of a leading qiraat scholar with accessibility for the beginning student.