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-Tabee’ee

January 25, 2011January 31, 2012 tajweed me6 Comments

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In the same way we sometimes wished that our holiday period can be a little longer, your tongue, ears and some letters themselves wish that they’re said for a little longer. ‘Why?’, you may think… Well, how obscure to the ear is it to hear someone say a dammah instead of a waaw? And how hard is it for them to continue the ayah without stumbling (after not prolonging)? … Let’s start by looking at this first prolongation…

Al-Madd Al-tabee‘ee: normal/natural prolongation is the act of prolonging or “stretching” the sound of the three madd letters:

ي و أ

alif waaw yaa

for two counts, i.e. the time it takes to say (one-two).

The rule has the following conditions:

The huroof al-madd must all be silent, i.e. have no diacritic on them.

A fat-ha must be present on the letter before a silent alif

A dammah must be present on the letter before a silent waaw

A kasrah must be present on the letter before a silent yaa.

Examples of this are as follow:

________

___qaala qeela yaqoolu

These examples can be combined into one word to help you remember the rule. The word is

نُوحِيهَا

nooheehaa

I really want to stress the fact that in the Quran you will not see a diacritic on these three letters if they are in the state of madd.

It will be an alif, waaw, or yaa with no fat-ha, dammah, kasra, or sukoon ontop/underneath. When I say that these letters must be silent, I am not saying they have sukoon. In fact, if you see a sukoon on an alif or waaw or yaa it means that you are not to stretch this letter whatsoever.

An example of sukoon present on these letters is as follows:

Mala-ihi

NOT: Mala-eehi

Aaminoo

NOT: Aaminooaa

Ulaa-ika

NOT: Uoolaa-ika

A final thing to be wary of is something called “‘ella” letters. This is when the three madd letters have no diacrtic on them, but are not prolonged because the letter preceeding them does not have the corresponding diacritic mentioned in the above conditions. This will be further discussed in a later post, insha Allah.

Resources Link:

-Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

-Makhaarij Al-Huroof [dot points 5, 7, 12, 15]

-Short and long vowels [Gatway To Arabic: pages 21-23; and 44-47]

-Tajweed Rule [Gatway To Arabic: page 4-6 and first half of page 7]

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.

Al-Qalqalah

January 4, 2011June 1, 2011 tajweed me14 Comments

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This-is-is post-ost-ost will-ill-ill be-be-be about-out-out Qalqalah-ah-ah…

But what is Qalqalah? First, be rest assured I won’t type echos for the rest of the post. Because it’d get a tad annoying for both author and reader. The word itself sounds repetitive and as interesting as it’s Tajweed rule.

Qalqalah: sound articulation and echo. In essence the word means shaking/disturbance. In Tajweed, it means to disturb the letter that has sukoon, i.e. that is saakin, but without any corresponding movement of the mouth and jaw that is associated with voweled letters (i.e. letters that have fat-ha, dammah, or kasra). Qalqalah “shakes” to “echo” the letter without taking up the preceding or succeeding letter’s diacritic.

To explain:

There are five letters in the Arabic alphabet that apply to Qalqalah. These five letters are:

ق ط ب ج د

daal jeem baa tah qaaf

To easily remember these letters, remember the phrase they make up, (قطب جد).

Simply, Qalqalah is echoing the above five letters when they are in state of sukoon, i.e.

قْ طْ بْ جْ دْ

To feel the importance of Qalqalah, try saying (أط), how about (أق) you’ll find one of two things happen. Either the back end of your tongue gets stuck and it’s difficult to loosen it and breathe, or your tongue will naturally slip and the back of your mouth is open again. It is this “slipping” that Qalqalah is based on. Disturbing the letter without moving your jaw or mouth. Try it for the rest of the letters, (أد) and (أج) and (أب). Imagine trying to say the word,

أبْناء

If there was no “slipping”/”shaking”/”echoing” of the letter baa (بْ) then how hard would it be to say the noon (ن) straight away with your lips still pressed together? Doing Qalqalah will cause your lips to “slip” a bit i.e. open up a tiny bit without adding a diacritic to the baa, to make it easy to pronounce the noon. On a final note, as one Imam puts it,

The qalqalah is necessary for these letters because they have the attributes of jahr (stoppage of the flow of breath) and shiddah (stoppage of the flow of sound), so without qalqalah, there would be no sound!

But as the blog has not covered attributes of letters yet, this might just sound all too surreal for some.

There are three types of Qalqalah:

Qalqalah Kubra (Strong Echo): occurs at the end of an ayah.

Qalqalah Wusta (Medium Echo): occurs at the end of a word in the middle of an ayah.

Qalqalah Sughra (Subtle Echo): occurs in the middle of a word whether at the beginning, middle or end of an ayah.

Examples of Qalqalah:

Kubra (strong):

_______Kasab __________________ Al-falaq

________Muheet _________________Masad _________________ Al-ma’aarij

You may notice the the last letters that require Qalqalah don’t actually have sukoon drawn above them! Diacritics have been put in place for readers who want to continue reading without a pause through to the next ayah. However, stopping at the end of every ayah is preferred and so in these such circumstances you must do a strong Qalqalah.

Wusta (middle):

qad aflaha ___________najid lahu

Here the sukoon is clearly marked on the Qalqalah letters.

V.I.Note: if you run out of breath and wish to stop in the middle of an ayah, and you stop at a word that has a qalqalah letter on the end, you must, must, must read it as a qalqalah kubra! For example, if I wanted to stop at the word qad in the above example, the daal must be echoed strongly. Then if I were to continue reading by repeating the word and continuing, I do a qalqalah wusta.

Here’s the example again:

[reciting] … [out of breath] … [stopping at word qad] … [doing a strong echo on the daal] … [takes breath] … [wants to continue] …

[start at the word qad and reads: qad aflaha, doing a qalqalah wusta on the daal].

Simple!

Sughra (subtle):

khalaqna _ _______________tat-heeran _____________________ abnaa’akum__

Similarly the sukoon is clearly marked on the Qalqalah letters.

Resources Link:

-Tajweed Rule [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 9]

–Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

-Makhaarij Al-Huroof [dot points 5, 7, 12, 15]

I suggest visiting Quranic Audio to listen to Qalqalah.

Select your favourite reciter and listen to Surat Al-Falaq [113]/Al-Masad [111]/Al-Qiyaamah [75] for Qalqalah kubra.

Qalqalah wusta and sughra occur throughout the entire Quran. I don’t think there is any particular one you really should listen to. Surat Al-Qalam [68] has a fair few Qalqalah sughra. I also suggest Surat Al-Muzzamil [73] for a combination of wusta and sughra.

Al-Meem Al-Saakinah: rule two

December 16, 2010June 1, 2011 tajweed me3 Comments

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The first rule for Al-Meem Al-Saakinah looked at the succession of a meem after a meem saakinah (مْ).

The second rule looks at meem saakinah followed by a baa (ب).

Rule two: Ikhfaa Shafawee (Hiding the sound by the use of the lips)

The second rule is enacted only when the latter baa follows a silent meem (meem saakinah). The condition here is that the baa must be mutaharik, i.e. have a diacritic (fat-ha, dammah, kasra).

The sound of the meem is hidden and the lips are shaped, ready to pronounce the baa. You may ask how can the meem be hidden? The answer is simple: do not press your two lips together completely [as you would if you were to pronounce a full meem]. Leave a very little gap and let the sound of the meem come from the deeper part of your mouth while you prepare to say the baa. By letting the meem come from the inner mouth, it’s sound stays encapsulated behind the teeth, and so the meem is hidden. Remember that this rule is carried out for two counts, i.e. the time it takes to say the words, “one – two”.

On a different, yet very important, note…

The rules for Al-Noon Al-Saakinah used a shaddah for notice purposes, i.e. to remind the reader to carry out the Al-Noon Al-Saakinah rule. Here, instead, the meem remains completely free of any diacritic. This is a notice for the reader to do ikhfaa shafawee.

And one last thing to recall…

At the end of the meem rules, I keep using the word “shafawee“. This is very important to distinguish the normal noon saakinah/tanween idghaam/ith-haar/ikhfaa from the ones done by the lips for the meem saakinah.

Examples of Ikhfaa Shafawee:

hum bil-aakhirati

tarmeehem bi-hijaaraten

ayyuhum bithaalika

Resources Link:

–Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

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

-Makhaarij Al-Huroof [dot point 15]

Al-Meem Al-Saakinah: rule one

December 12, 2010June 1, 2011 tajweed meLeave a comment

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As with Al-Noon Al-Saakinah, Al-meem Al-saakinah has it’s own Tajweed rules.

The fourth rule for Al-Noon Al-Saakinah described what idghaam is. Because meem is a letter pronounced using the lips^[1]the rule differs a bit.

Rule one: Idghaam Shafawee (Lip-based Merging or Merging with the use of lips).

For any meem saakinah, when a second meem follows it, Idghaam Shafawee is sounded for two counts, i.e. the time it takes to say the words, “one – two”. The condition here is that the latter meem has a fat-ha, dammah or kasra on it. Note a shaddah on the second meem is drawn as a notice of this rule [i.e. it is not there for shaddah purposes].

Examples of Idghaam Shafawee are as follow:

___ __

lahum maa ____quloobihim maradun

__ _____

faghashiyahum mina ______ am man

Simple as that. Practice makes perfect.

Resources Link:

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

–Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

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

^[1] -View the document ‘Maakharij Al -Huroof’ or ‘Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More’ pages 3 and 4 titled Origin of Letters

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule four

December 7, 2010June 1, 2011 tajweed me2 Comments

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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.

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule three

December 5, 2010October 24, 2011 tajweed me2 Comments

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Allahuma ya muqaliba al-quloob thabit qalbi ‘ala deenika

اللهم يا مُقلِّبَ القُلوب … ثبتْ قَلبي على دينكَ

Rule Three: Iqlaab — Tahweel Al-shay’ ‘an wajh (Flipping).

After every Noon Saakinah or Tanween, if the letter baa (ب) follows, the sound must be flipped [i.e. changed] to the sound of the letter meem (م). This is represented by a little meem on top of the letter itself as pictured below:

The lips should not be entirely pressed together, to allow for the meem to come through the nasal passage as well. The mouth should be prepared to say the baa after sounding through the meem. So the above, min b‘ad is sounds like mimm b‘ad when read. What ever you do, take this piece of advice and do not get mixed up between the full shaped meem (م) drawn above letters to indicate iqlaab, and the cut meem (مـ) to indicated a compulsory stop. Refer to the resources link below. Iqlaab must be sounded for two counts, i.e. the time it takes to say the words, “one – two”.

Examples of the third rule are as follow:

example one: min b‘ad – منْ بَعْدِ

example two: layunbathanna – لَيُنْبِذَنَّ

example three: samee‘an baseeran – سَمِيعَاً بَصِيراً

Resources Link:

– Sukoon [Gateway to Arabic, page 48]

– Rules of stopping [Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: page 15]

– Tanween [Gateway to Arabic: page 40]

[Tajweed Basics: Foundations and More: pages 11 – 14]

More about the Arabic letters can be found here: http://www.meem.freeuk.com/ scroll down to the “ABJAD TABLE” and select a letter.

اللهم يا مُقلِّبَ القلوب ثبتْ قلبي على دينك

Tajweed Me

All for Quran & Tajweed

Tag: silent

Al-Madd Al-Tamkeen

Al-Madd Al-Tabee’ee

Al-Qalqalah

Al-Meem Al-Saakinah: rule two

Al-Meem Al-Saakinah: rule one

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule four

Al-Noon Al-Saakinah: rule three