Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ, Zabbān b. al-ʿAlāʾ b. ʿAmmār b. ʿUryān (68–154/687–771), was one of the ‘seven readers’ (al-qurrāʾ al-sabʿa), a man of letters and a chronicler, who came from Baṣra. His name is given in more than twenty versions due to discrepancies in the sources and to misspellings (al-Andarābī, 84; al-Suyūṭī, 2/418). According to reliable sources, he was descended from the tribe of Māzin (Ibn Mujāhid, 80, 81). It is also said that of the ‘seven readers’, only Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ and Ibn Mujāhid had Arab …