Do you favour sunny days over cool nights? Or a bright glowing moon instead? This post is filled with sunshine, so pop on your sunnies and get ready… you’ll now be officially introduced to our star (pun intended)…..Sunny Laam! …no: not Lamb!

There is a big contradiction between the way I type transliteration, and this post. You will come to realise this as I begin to explain this rule.

Al-Laam Al-Shamseeyah: is the laam which occurs at the beginning of a word, whereby it is merged with the letter that follows it.

Let’s note:

a) In the case where the laam is merged, the “ll” sound it makes is completely eliminated.

b) For the laam to be merged, it must be a silent laam.

c) Considering no word in the Arabic language can start with a sukoon, the merging of the laam cannot happen unless the word begins with “Al-“. This is because – had there been no alif before the laam – there would be nothing to “make possible” the merging of the “ll” sound.

d) The letter following the laam that must be merged HAS TO BE one of the following 14 letters:

ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ل ن

Note the first letter of each word in the following phrase, these are the 14 letters stated above, sometimes phrases are easier to remember for those more fluent in Arabic:

طِبْ ثُمَّ صِلْ رَحِماً تَفُزْ ضِفْ ذَا نِعَمْ دَعْ سُوءَ ظَنٍّ زُرْشَرِيفَاً لِلْكَرَمْ

e) You will notice, part of the Quranic scripture, that there is a shaddah on the letter that invokes this merging.

f) For the laam to be merged, it cannot be part of the original make up of the word.

Now let’s see examples:

On the right is the letter example and the Quranic script, on the left is how it is read.

In order, from top to bottom:

taa: Al-taa’iboona = At-taa’iboona

thaa: Al-thamaraati = Ath-thamaraati

daal: Al-daa‘eeya = Ad-daa‘eeya

thaal = Wal-thaariyaati = Wath-thaariyaati

In order, from top to bottom:

raa: Al-Rahmaani = Ar-Rahmaani

zaal: Al-zaqoomi = Az-zaqoomi

seen: Al-saa’ihoona = As-saa’ihoona

sheen: Al-shamsu = Ash-shamsu

saad: Al-saalihaati = As–saalihaati

daad: Al-daalleena = Ad–daalleena

In order from top to bottom:

tah: Al-taammatu = At–taammatu

thah: Al-thaanneena = Ath–thaanneena

laam: Al-layl = A-llayla

noon: Al-naas = An-naasi

Note that merging the laam into the next letter cannot happen unless you sound a shaddah on that letter, i.e. for the last word in the examples, you must say, “annaasi” not “anasi”. If a shaddah is not sounded, the meaning can change entirely.

That’s all for this sunny post! Just remember, sunny laam = merging = no laam at all = shaddah. Beautiful examples and practice on page 62 of the Gateway To Arabic resource file. Link to resource page is found below.

Resources Link:

-Tajweed Rule “the sun letters” [Gateway To Arabic: page 62]

– Sukoon [Gateway To Arabic: page 48]

– Shaddah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

[Gateway To Arabic: page 49]

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.

Al-Madd Al-Tamkeen

July 12, 2011July 12, 2011 tajweed me3 Comments

NOTE: if you are new to the website, please click here for a brief guide.

Have you ever come across something so simple that you’ve thought it’s too insignificant to consider… or take note of?

Many tajweed books nowadays have omitted this madd because of it’s necessity that comes naturally when reciting. Yet, I thought I should post it here so that you can all be more aware that such a rule exists.

Al-Madd Al-Tamkeen ^[1]: occurs when a yaa mushaddadah with a kasr is followed by a yaa saakinah. This occurs only within a word, as words cannot start with a sukoon.

To be more specific: within a word, you notice a yaa that has a shaddah, and a kasra, this generally looks like this:

ــيِّــ

then you notice that after this yaa is another one, which has sukoon on it. Naturally as you pronounce this word, you are sounding this rule, al-madd al-tamkeen.

Examples of where this occurs in the Quran are as follow:

wa ithaa huyyeetum

wa khaatama al-nabiyyeen

wal-ummiyyeen

As you may have noticed, sometimes it is written as two yaa-s, or sometimes only one yaa is written and the “mini” symbol for the second yaa (the yaa saakinah) is drawn.

That’s it for al-madd al-tamkeen! Can you guess why it’s classed as a madd?

Look up the shaddah and sukoon on the resources page by following the link below.

Resources Link:

– Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

– Shaddah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

[Gatway To Arabic: page 49]

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.

^[1] Al-Madd Al-Tamkeen: المد التمكين

Al-Madd Al-Laazim: Kalimee

May 15, 2011December 18, 2011 tajweed me7 Comments

NOTE: if you are new to the website, please click here for a brief guide.

Do you enjoy really long walks? By the seaside or greenery? If you enjoy lengthy “anythings”, then you’ll definitely enjoy sounding this lengthy madd…

Al-Madd Al-Laazim: necessary prolongation is the longest madd in tajweed. It is an umbrella term that branches into 2 types, which also branch into another 2 types, hence making a total of 6 types of necessary prolongation.

In this post I will discuss the right branch of al-madd al-laazim.

The right branch is kalimee (word based). This branches out again into two types, the first, muthaqal (heavy) and the second, mukhaffaf (light).

The rule for necessary prolongation is an occurrence of a grammatical (Arabic) rule. This rule says that no two saakin letters can follow one another (as this is very difficult on the tongue). To abide by this rule, a madd is slotted between the two saakins for 6 counts. Let’s now differentiate between light and heavy word based necessary prolongations.

Al-madd al-laazim al-kalimee al-muthaqal (heavy word based necessary prolongation) occurs in words that have a laazim saakin letter (where the letter has sukoon as part of the original make up of the word) after a harf madd. This sukoon is a result of a shaddah. As explained in a previous post, a shaddah causes a letter to be doubled where the first occurrence has a sukoon, and the second has a diacritic (more about shaddah here). Examples of al-madd al-laazim al-kalimee al-muthaqal are as follow:

Al-haaaqqah

Wal-saaaffaat

Al-daaalleen

Al-madd al-laazim al-kalimee al-mukhaffaf (light word based necessary prolongation) occurs in a word where a harf madd is followed by a laazim saakin letter whereby this sukoon is not merged with another letter. What does this mean? Just above I said that a shaddah causes the doubling of a letter, and hence, you are merging the first occurrence with the second to make it sound as 1 mushaddad letter. In this case, the letter with a saakin is not because of a shaddah, it is just a sukoon ( ْْْْo ْ) that is part of the original make up of the word. This type of necessary prolongation is sounded for 6 counts.

This type of madd only occurs twice in the Quran. The word is the same, even the surah is the same. Here it is:

Surat Yunus; Ayah 51:

Aaal-aana waqad kuntum bihi tasta‘jiloona

Surat Yunus; Ayah 91:

Aaal-aana waqad ‘asayta

Considering this madd is so long, I’ve tried my best to keep this post short! 🙂

Hope everything makes sense, though. Let me know if it doesn’t.

Resources Link:

– ‘Jadwal Al-Mudood’, ninth madd listed

– Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

– ‘Tajweed Basics Foundations And More’ covers a range of mudood

– Shaddah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

[Gatway To Arabic: page 49]

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.

Noon and Meem Mushaddadah

December 10, 2010November 11, 2011 tajweed me4 Comments

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shaddah

Qaala sanashuddu ‘adudaka bi akheeka

Allah said: “We will strengthen your arm through your brother..”

In the Arabic language, there are diacritics [including the fat-ha, dhammah and kasrah] that can be the reason a word’s meaning changes completely. One of these diacritics is the shaddah. Insha Allah I will briefly explain what this is and move on to the Tajweed rule regarding the Noon and Meem letters that have a shaddah.

Directly translating the word shaddah, results in the meaning “[sign of] emphasis”. In general language, it means to pull or make something tight. But how does the shaddah actually function? It stresses a letter by doubling it’s sound. As given in a previous post [see “Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule four”], a shaddah consists of two letters [hence the doubling]:

The first letter is a saakin, i.e. it has sukoon on it

The second letter has a respective diacritic, fat-ha, dammah, or kasrah.

The example given in the previous post was:

fawaylun lillatheena

Here we noted that the first shaddah on the laam was there for notice purposes, and the second was there to be a shaddah and double that second laam. And so the word is read as:

lil-latheena as written above, lillatheena

See, two laam‘s.

Just to be sure it all makes sense, a few more examples of shaddah are as follow:

________________

kar-ratan fanatabar-ra‘a _______________ it-tabi‘u

karratan fanatabarra’a _______________ ittabi‘u

wal mutal-laqaatu yatarab-basna

wal mutallaqaatu yatarabbasna

bu‘ulatuhun-na ahaq-qu birad-dihin-na

bu‘ulatuhunna ahaqqu biraddihinna

To briefly explain the colour code. The light green is where the doubling of the letter occurs. The darker green is the respective diacritic that follows the doubling.

Now that the shaddah is down-pat understood, the Tajweed rule regarding the shaddah is as follows.

For every noon and meem mushaddad, i.e. for every noon and meem that have a shaddah, one must sound a ghunnah.

Recall a ghunnah is the sound made entirely by the nose [nasal passage]. It is almost like a hum and completes the sound of the noon or meem. Ghunnah is directly translated to “nasalisation” and this should not be longer than two counts. i.e. similar to the time it takes to say the words: “one – two”

This rule in Arabic is called, ghunnat noon/meem mushaddadah.

It is the simplest rule, because you just need to check, does the noon/meem have a shaddah on top? If so, sound a ghunnah.

Examples for ghunnat noon mushadadah are:

____________________

Examples of ghunnat meem mushaddadah are:

____________________

And it’s as simple as that! This Tajweed rule is complete! Where you see a shaddah on a meem or noon, just do a ghunnah.

But wait.

As I mentioned, diacritics have the ability to change the entire meaning of a word/sentence. I don’t like to just say things, so let’s prove it.

Let’s look at the word:

دَرَسَ

darasa

Darasa means “he studied”. Now let’s add a shaddah to this word:

دَرَّسَ

dar-rasa

Darrasa means “he taught”. Very simple, very big difference. One more example.

The sentence:

بَكى صَبِيٌّ

bakaa sabiy-yun

This sentence means “a boy cried”.

Adding another two shaddah causes two things, letters alif and laam to be added making the boy an object being pointed to, and the meaning to change.

Note:

بَكَّى الصَّبِيُّ

bak-kaa al-sabiy-yu

Which means “[he] made the boy cry”.

Later you will come to realise that not only do diacritics change the meaning of things, but so does the pronunciation of a letter.

As for Tajweed, just remember shaddah + meem or noon = ghunnah.

Resources Link:

–Shaddah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

[Gatway To Arabic: page 49]

–Ghunnah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

-Diacritics [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 4]

Practicing diacritics exercises up to page 6

[Gateway To Arabic: pages 21 – 24]

-Tajweed Rule [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: first half page 10]

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.

… ارخيلا بتنرخا

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule four

December 7, 2010June 1, 2011 tajweed me2 Comments

NOTE: if you are new to the website, please click here for a brief guide.

merging colours

Merging things together can be heaps of fun. I tend to enjoy combining colours together to create new, fascinating ones. The fourth rule for Al-Noon Al-Saakinah is all about merging/combining. This rule is said to be one of the most complicated rules. But there is nothing to fret about because practice makes perfect, insha Allah.

Rule four: Al-Idghaam — Al-Idkhaal (To merge with)

There are two types of Idghaam. and from these two, a couple more branch out. Take a look at the diagram below:

So what does all this mean?

Let’s start with what ghunnah means.

Ghunnah: A ghunnah is the sound made entirely by the nose [this is in regards to the sounds coming from the mouth].

An Idghaam bi ghunnah occurs with any Tanween or Noon Saakinah if it is followed by any of these letters:

ي ن م و

waw meem noon yaa

This completes the first level of the diagram when following the rightmost arrow.

Merging without ghunnah, i.e. Idghaam bila ghunnah occurs when the letters

ل ر

raa laam

follow a Noon Saakinah or Tanween. Now the leftmost arrow of the first level of the diagram is complete. [i.e. the entire first level is now complete].

With these two letters, raa and laam, their idghaam is called: idghaam bila ghunnah kaamel, or in English, merging without ghunnah fully.

Here the “nn” sound from the Tanween or Noon Saakinah is completely eliminated and the laam or raa are said straight away without any emphasis on their sounds. Hence why the “fully” is added onto the end – i.e. noting that the “nn” sound is “fully” wiped out.

Examples of idghaam bila ghunnah kaamel / merging without ghunnah fully:

waylun likulli humazatin lumazah

The two “n” I have in red are completely eliminated and so the verse is read as,

waylulikulli humazatilumaza

Notice the two green letters are now the place where the two words are connected without the Tanween. Some students [and I know quite a few] have trouble in the beginning trying to connect two words without the “nn” sound in between. They end up “leaning on” the laam or raa and saying them as though there is a shaddah^[1] on these two letters. However there isn’t.

But here you may protest that in fact there is. Look at the example above. There is a shaddah on the laam in both cases for the words likulli and lumazah. This shaddah is not there for shaddah purposes. It has been put there as a notice to the reader that the Tanween (or Noon Saakinah) is not to be pronounced at all, not even through the nasal passage.

Below is a second example using a Noon Saakinah.

min rabbi read as, mir-rabbi

While I still have your attention [I hope], and avoiding any confusion possible, insha Allah, I’ll continue on with the rightmost arrow, merging with ghunnah.

Recall that a ghunnah is a sound made entirely by the nose [nasalisation], somewhere between a hum and a moan. Like an aeroplane engine, probably. The merging with ghunnah letters as above have two categories. “Full” and “lesser”. Full idghaam means that this aeroplane humming comes through sounding a lot stronger than it would when the lesser one is made. The letters,

ن م

meem noon

coincide with a full idgham bi ghunnah, where as the remaining letters,

ي و

waw yaa

are to be said with a “lesser idgham bi ghunnah“. Idgham bi ghunnah, whether fuller or lesser is sounded for two counts, similar to the time it takes to say the words, “one – two”.

Examples of a full idghaam bi ghunnah:

____________

rasoolun min min marqadinaa

min maarijen min naaren

(3 occurrences of a fuller idghaam bi ghunnah)

note: min maarij – maarijen min – min naar

Examples of lesser idghaam bi ghunnah:

dalaalatun walaakinni

min yawmihem

Examples of idghaam bila ghunnah kaamel:

bideenaaren la

fawaylun lillatheena

Notice here the shaddah on the first laam is to note the ruling of idghaam bila ghunnah kaamel. The second shaddah however is there for shaddah purposes. You are to “double” the sound of the second laam so it is said as I’ve written above, lil-latheena.

Idghaam is something I find very beautiful. It’s adds a tremendous tone to recitation and I think it, alongside the rule regarding noon and meem mushadadah, adds a very serene and tranquil sensation for the both listener and reader.

What’s that rule I just mentioned? Keep an eye out for new posts.

Resources Link:

–Shaddah [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 2]

[Gatway To Arabic: page 49]

–Idghaam [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 12]

–Tanween [Gatway To Arabic: pages 40-43]

–Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

^[1] – Shaddah: is to double the sound of a letter so that it is stressed. Such a letter is said to be mushaddad.

Tajweed Me

All for Quran & Tajweed

Tag: shaddah

Al-Laam Al-Shamseeyah

Al-Madd Al-Tamkeen

Al-Madd Al-Laazim: Kalimee

Noon and Meem Mushaddadah

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule four