Tajwid

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Muṣḥaf al-tajweed, an edition of the Qur'an printed with colored letters to facilitate tajwīd.

Tajweed (Arabic: تجويد‎‎ tajwīd, IPA: [tædʒˈwiːd], meaning "elocution"), sometimes rendered as tajwid, refers to the rules governing pronunciation during recitation of the Qur'an. The term is derived from the triliteral root j-w-d meaning "to make well, make better, improve". Tajweed is a fard (religious duty) when reciting the Qur'an to the best of one's ability.

Arabic alphabet and grammar

The Arabic alphabet has 28 basic letters, plus hamzah (ء).

ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ہ و ي‎

The Arabic word for "the" is ال al- (i.e. the letter alif followed by lām). The lām in al- is pronounced if the letter after it is "qamarīyah" ("lunar"), but if the letter after it is "shamsīyah" ("solar"), the lām after it becomes part of the following letter (is assimilated). "Solar" and "lunar" became descriptions for these instances as the words for "the moon" and "the sun" (al-qamar and ash-shams, respectively) are examples of this rule.

Lunar letters: ا ب ج ح خ ع غ ف ق ك م ہ و ي‎

Solar letters: ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ن‎

Emission points

There are 17 emission points (makhārij al-ḥurūf) of the letters, located in various regions of the throat, tongue, lips, nose, and the mouth as a whole for the prolonged (mudd) letters.

The manner of articulation (ṣifat al-ḥurūf) refers to the different attributes of the letters. Some of the characteristics have opposites, while some are individual. An example of a characteristic would be the fricative consonant sound called ṣafīr, which is an attribute of air escaping from a tube.

Thickness and thinness

The emphatic consonants خ ص ض ط ظ غ ق, known as mufakhkham letters, are pronounced with a “heavy accent” (tafkhīm). This is done by either pharyngealization /ˤ/, i.e. pronounced while squeezing one's voicebox, or by velarization /ˠ/. The remaining letters – the muraqqaq – have a “light accent” (tarqīq) as they are pronounced normally, without pharyngealization (except ع, which is often considered a pharyngeal sound).

ر (rāʼ ) is heavy when accompanied by a fatḥah or ḍammah and light when accompanied by a kasrah. If its vowel sound is cancelled, such as by a sukūn or the end of a sentence, then it is light when the first preceding voweled letter (without a sukun) has a kasrah. It is heavy if the first preceding voweled letter is accompanied by a fatḥah or ḍammah. For example, the ر at the end of the first word of the Sūrat "al-ʻAṣr" is heavy because the ع (ʻayn) has a fatḥah:

وَالْعَصْرٍ ‎

بِسْمِ الله‎

Prolongation

Prolongation refers to the number of morae (beats of time) that are pronounced when a voweled letter (fatḥah, ḍammah, kasrah) is followed by a mudd letter (alif, yāʼ or wāw). The number of morae then becomes two. If these are at the end of the sentence, such as in all the verses in "al-Fatiha", then the number of morae can be more than two, but must be consistent from verse to verse. Additionally, if there is a maddah sign over the mudd letter, it is held for four or five morae when followed by a hamzah (ء) and six morae when followed by a shaddah.^[1] For example, the end of the last verse in "al-Fatiha" has a six-mora maddah due to the shaddah on the ل (lām).

صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ ٱلمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ ٱلضَّآلِّين ‎

Sākinah (vowelless) letters

Nūn sākinah and tanwīn

Nūn sākinah refers to instances where the letter nūn is accompanied by a tanwīn or sukun sign. There are then four ways it should be pronounced, depending on which letter immediately follows:

1. iẓhār  ("clarity"): the nūn sound is pronounced clearly without additional modifications when followed by "letters of the throat" (ء ه ع ح غ خ). Consider the nūn with a sukun pronounced regularly in the beginning of the last verse in "al-Fatiha":

صِرَٰطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمتَ ‎

1. iqlāb  ("conversion"): the nūn sound is converted to a /m/ sound if it is followed by a ب. Additionally, it is pronounced in a ghunnah (a nasalization held for two morae). Consider the nūn sound on the tanwīn on the letter dāl that is pronounced as a mīm instead in the chapter Al-Kafirun:

وَلَا أَنَا عَابِدٌ مَا عَبَدْتُمْ‎

1. idghām  ("merging"): the nūn sound is not pronounced when followed by a ل or ر. There is also a ghunnah if it is followed by و م ي or another ن . Idghām only applies between two words and not in the middle of a word. Consider for example the nūn that is not pronounced in the fifth line (the Shahada) in the Call to Prayer:

أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلٰهَ إِلَا ٱللهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ ٱللهِ‎

1. ikhfāʼ  ("concealment"): the nūn sound is not fully pronounced (i.e. the tongue does not make full contact with the roof of the mouth as in a regular /n/ sound) if it is followed by any letters other than those already listed, includes a ghunnah. Consider the nūn that is suppressed in the second verse of the chapter Al-Falaq:

مِنْ شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ‎

Mīm sākinah

The term mīm sākinah refers to instances where the letter mīm is accompanied by a sukun. There are then three ways it should be pronounced, depending on which letter immediately follows:

1. idgham mutamathilayn  ("labial merging") when followed by another mīm (usually indicated by a shaddah): the mīm is then merged with the following mīm and includes a ghunnah;
2. ikhfāʼ shafawī  ("labial concealment"): the mīm is suppressed (i.e. lips not fully closed) and, when followed by a ب, includes a ghunnah;
3. iẓhār shafawī  ("labial clarity"): the mīm is pronounced clearly with no amendment when followed by any letters other than those already listed.

Qalqalah

The five qalqalah letters are the consonants ق ط د ج ب. Qalqalah is the addition of a slight "bounce" or reduced vowel sound /ə/ to the consonant whose vowel sound is otherwise cancelled, such as by a sukūn, shaddah, or the end of sentence.^[2] The "lesser bounce" occurs when the letter is in the middle of a word or at the end of the word but the reader joins it to the next word. A "medium bounce" is given when the letter is at the end of the word but is not accompanied by a shaddah, such as the end of the first verse of the Sūrat "al-Falaq":^[2]

قُلۡ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ ٱلۡفَلَقِ‎

The biggest bounce is when the letter is at the end of the word and is accompanied by a shaddah, such as the end of the first verse of Sūrat "al-Masad":^[2]

تَبَّتۡ يدَاۤ اَبِیۡ لَهَبٍ وَّ تَبَّ ‎

Waṣl

Waṣl is the rule of not pronouncing alif as a glottal stop /ʔ/, assimilating to its adjacent vowel. It is indicated with the diacritic waṣlah, a small ṣād on the letter alif (ٱ). In Arabic, words starting with alif not using a hamzah (ا) are capable to get a waṣlah.

بِسْمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحْمٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيْمِ‎

In most of cases the vowel that must be used before alif waṣlah is obvious (the short or long vowel before alif waṣlah); but if it is before a syllable ending on another ḥarakah plus sukūn, then these are the rules:

In the case of Tanwin and alif waṣlah, the intrusive kasrah between them is not graphically represented.

Waqf

Waqf is the Arabic pausa rule; all words whose last letter end on a harakah become mute (sukūn) when being the last word of a sentence.

In the case of the proper name عمرو /ʕamrun/, it is pronounced /ʕamr/ in pausa, and the last letter و wāw has no phonetical valor. And in fact, عمرو is a triptote (something irregular in most proper nouns, since they are are usually diptotes).

Manners

Manners of the heart

• Understanding the origin of the word.
• One should understand that the Qurʼan is not the word of man.
• The reader should throw away all other thoughts.
• One should understand the meaning.
• One should be humble.
• One should feel that every message in the Qurʼan is meant personally for himself or herself.

External manners

• One should be vigilant of the purity of body, clothes, and place.
• One is encouraged to face the Qiblah.
• One should stop at a verse of warning and seek protection with Allah.
• One should stop at a verse of mercy and ask Allah for mercy.
• One should use pure Literary Arabic pronunciation, in addition to pronouncing the letter ج (jīm) as [d͡ʒ], not as [ɡ].
• One should have wuḍūʼ  ("purity") and read only for the sake of God.

See also

• Qāriʾ

  Qāriʾ Abdul Basit 'Abd us-Samad

  Qāriʾ Ahmad bin Ali Al-Ajmi

  Qāriʾ Mishary Rashid Alafasy

  Qāriʾah Maria Ulfah

  Qāriʾ Muhammad Farooq

  Qāriʾ Shakir Qasmi

• Qira'at
• Quran reading

Analogous and related fields

• Elocution, the analogous modern Western study.
• Pronuntiatio, the analogous classical Western study.
• Shiksha, Hindu Vedic recital study.
• Phonetics

References

Notes

Books and journals

• The Art of Reciting the Qur'an by Kristina Nelson, American University in Cairo Press (Cairo, NY), 2001.
• Tajwid: The Art of Recitation of the Holy Qur'an by Dr. Abdul Majid Khan, Tughra Books 2013. http://www.tughrabooks.com/books/detail/tajwid-the-art-of-the-recitation-of-the-quran
• “Theory and Practice of Tajwid,” Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, IV, Leiden, Brill, 2007 (or still in press)

External links

• Essential Ilm, lessons about Arabic and reciting the Quran with tajweed.
• Tajweed podcast, iTunes tajwīd podcast in English for English speakers.
• http://quranhost.com