al-Dani

Abu Amr Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Dani (371-444 AH / 981-1053 CE), also known as Ibn al-Sayrafi, was one of the foremost scholars of qira'at (the canonical variant readings of the Qur'an) and rasm (Qur'anic orthography, the conventions for writing the consonantal text) in the Islamic West. He was born in or near Cordoba, then under Umayyad rule, and biographers report that he came from a family connected to the ruling Umayyad line; he is said to have begun formal study at about fourteen.

In 1006 he travelled east to pursue knowledge, studying hadith (Prophetic reports) at Kairouan, then continuing to Egypt, performing the Hajj at Mecca, and visiting Medina, before returning to Cordoba around 1009 amid the civil strife that was tearing apart the Umayyad state. He later moved through al-Andalus and eventually settled in Denia on the eastern coast, under the Taifa ruler Mujahid al-Amiri; his nisba "al-Dani" derives from that city, where he taught, wrote, and died.

Al-Dani was extraordinarily prolific; the later biographer al-Dhahabi credits him with some 120 works. His best-known are al-Taysir fi al-qira'at al-sab' ("The Facilitation of the Seven Readings"), a concise teaching manual that, traditionally about a century later, the poet al-Shatibi recast into the celebrated verse poem Hirz al-Amani (the Shatibiyya), and al-Muqni' fi rasm masahif al-amsar, a foundational treatise on Qur'anic orthography. He was a Maliki by legal school.