In Islam, Qirāʼah, (pl. Qirāʼāt; Arabic: قراءات, lit. 'recitations or readings') are different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Differences between Qiraʼat are slight and include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants (leading to different pronouns and verb forms), and less frequently entire words. Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.