The author's word

This work did not begin with the author. His grandfather, the faqih Si M'hammed (رحمه الله), was a taleb: he carried the Quran in his memory and handed it on with his voice, his wooden tablet and his qalam, dictating the verse and writing it, so that the pupil received it heard and written at once. In his home the Recitation never stopped; it was part of the house.

It is from him that the author took the torch. What his grandfather handed on through voice, tablet and qalam, he hands on today with the means of our time: a database, a translation checked word by word, a site open to all. The tools have changed; the task is the same. This is how the saying has come down: from mouth to mouth, from one generation of tolba to the next, without a break; this site is only one more link in that chain.

At the head of this page he has placed a verse that binds him: to be a witness for God, even against oneself, or one's parents, or one's relatives. To bear witness here is first to bear witness for this transmission: to say what the text says, as it was received, even when this reading is held by few and runs against established custom. Whatever is right here owes itself to what he received; whatever is wrong is his.

AbuIlyass — أبو إلياس