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الإجازة والسند
Ijazah & Sanad
The licence to transmit, and the chain of teachers it carries.
An ijazah is the licence a teacher gives a student to transmit what they have recited, granted after the teacher has heard the whole Qur’an from them in a stated riwayah.
The sanad is the chain of names the ijazah carries: the student from their teacher, from theirs, and so on through the generations back to the Prophet ṣalla Allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
It is not a certificate of merit. It is a statement of fact: that this person recited this text to this teacher, and may now teach it to others.