Tajwid

In the context of the recitation of the Quran, or (, ) is a set of rules for the correct pronunciation of the letters with all their qualities and applying the various traditional methods of recitation, known as . In Arabic, the term is derived from the verb (), meaning enhancement or to make something excellent. Technically, it means giving every letter its right in reciting the Quran.

is a system by which one learns the pronunciation of Quranic words as pronounced by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The beginning of the system of was when the early Islamic states or caliphates expanded in the third century of Hijra (9th century / 184–288 AH) under the Abbasid Caliphate, where errors in pronunciation increased in the Quran due to the entry of many non-Arab Muslims into Islam. So the scholars of the Quran began to write the rules of intonation. It is said that the first person to collect the system of in his book was ( 770–838 CE) in the third century of Hijra.

History

The history of Quranic recitation is tied to the history of , as each reciter had their own set of tajwid rules, with much overlap between them.

Abu Ubaid al-Qasim bin Salam (774–838 CE) was the first to develop a recorded system for tajwid, giving the rules of tajwid names and putting it into writing in his book called ''al-Qiraat.'' He wrote about 25 reciters, including the 7 mutawatir reciters. He made the reality, transmitted through reciters of every generation, a system with defined rules, terms, and enunciation.

Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid (859–936 CE) wrote a book called "The Seven of the Recitations". He is the first to limit the number of recitations to the seven known.

Imam Al-Shatibi (1320–1388 CE) wrote a poem outlining the two most famous ways passed down from each of seven strong imams, known as . In it, he documented the rules of recitation of Naafi’, Ibn Katheer, Abu ‘Amr, Ibn ‘Aamir, ‘Aasim, al-Kisaa’i, and Hamzah. It is 1173 lines long and a major reference for the seven qira’aat.

Ibn al-Jazari (1350–1429 CE) wrote two large poems about and . One was Durrat Al-Maa'nia (), in the readings of three major reciters, added to the seven in the , making it ten. The other is (), which is 1014 lines on the ten major reciters in great detail, of which he also wrote a commentary.

Religious obligation

Knowledge of the actual rules is a community duty (). There is a difference of opinion on the ruling for individuals. Dr. Shadee Elmasry states that it is an individual obligation () on every Muslim to recite the opening chapter of the Qur'an () with correct , though they do not need to know the terms and definitions of the rules themselves. Sheikh Zakariyya al-Ansari stated that it is sinful to recite in a way that changes the meaning or changes the grammar. If it does not change these two things, then it is not sinful, even if it is a clear error.

Qur'an and hadith on tajwīd

The central Quranic verse about is verse 73:4: "...and recite the Qur'an with measured recitation." The word (), as used in this verse, is often also used in hadith in conjunction with its command. It means to articulate slowly, carefully, and precisely.

Abu Dawud's hadith collection has a chapter heading titled "Recommendation of (reciting with) in the Qur'an." It begins with the narration: "The Messenger of Allah peace and blessings be upon him said: One who was devoted to the Qur'an will be told to recite, ascend and recite carefully ( ) as he recited carefully when he was in the world, for he will reach his abode when he comes to the last verse he recites (Sunan Abi Dawud 1464)." This narration describes the importance of the manner of recitation and its positive effects in the afterlife. The next narration describes the importance of prolongation ( ): "Qatadah said: I asked Anas about the recitation of the Qur'an by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He said: He used to express all the long accents clearly () (Sunan Abi Dawud 1465)." This narration also shows that even the companions of the prophet used some terms which are still used today in rules.

Arabic alphabet and grammar

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

The Arabic definite article is ''al-'' (i.e. the letter ''alif'' followed by ). The in ''al-'' is pronounced if the letter after it is (, lunar), but if the letter after it is (, solar), the 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" ( and , respectively) are examples of this rule.

Emission points

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

The manner of articulation () 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 , which is an attribute of air escaping from a tube.

Thickness and thinness

The emphatic consonants , known as ' letters, are pronounced with a "heavy accent" ('). This is done by either pharyngealization /ˤ/, i.e. pronounced while squeezing one's voicebox, or by velarization /ˠ/. The remaining letters – the  – have a "light accent" () as they are pronounced normally, without pharyngealization (except , which is often considered a pharyngeal sound).

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

(') is only heavy in the word '. If, however, the preceding vowel is a ''kasrah'', then the in ' is light, such as in the ''Bismillah'':

Prolongation

Prolongation refers to the number of morae (beats of time) that are pronounced when a voweled letter (', ', ') is followed by a ''madd'' letter (, , or ). The number of morae then becomes two. If these are at the end of the sentence, such as in all the verses in "", 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 ''madd'' letter, it is held for four or five morae when followed by a ' () and six morae when followed by a '. For example, the end of the last verse in "al-Fatiha" has a six-mora ''maddah'' due to the ''shaddah'' on the (').

''Sākinah'' (vowelless) letters

''Nūn sākinah'' and ''tanwīn''

''Nūn sākinah'' refers to instances where the letter ''nūn'' is accompanied by a sign, some cases of which involve '' tanwīn''s nun with a sukun. There are then four ways it should be pronounced, depending on which letter immediately follows:

''Iẓhār''

# ' ("clarity"): the sound is pronounced clearly without additional modifications when followed by "letters of the throat" (). Consider the ''nūn'' with a pronounced regularly in the beginning of the last verse in "al-Fatiha":

''Iqlāb''

# ' ("conversion"): the ''nūn'' sound is converted to a sound with imperfect closure if it is followed by a . Additionally, it is pronounced with ''ghunnah'', i.e. nasalization which can be held for two morae. Consider the ''nūn'' sound on the tanwīn on the letter jīm that is pronounced as a mīm instead in the chapter Al-Hajj:

''Idghām''

# ' ("merging"): the ''nūn'' sound fully assimilates to the following sound if the latter is or another . With and , there is no nasalization (''ghunnah''). The last 4 letters also receive ''ghunnah'' in the process ( and with ''ghunnah'' are pronounced as and ). 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:

''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 . Consider the ''nūn'' that is suppressed in the second verse of the chapter Al-Falaq:

''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:
# ' ("labial merging") when followed by another ''mīm'' (usually indicated by a '): the ''mīm'' is then merged with the following ''mīm'' and includes a ''ghunnah'';
# ' ("labial concealment"): the ''mīm'' is suppressed (i.e. lips not fully closed) when followed by a , with a ; Consider the ''mīm'' that is suppressed in the fourth verse of the chapter Al-Fil:
#*
#' ("labial clarity"): the ''mīm'' is pronounced clearly with no amendment when followed by any letters other than those already listed.

''Qalqalah''

The five ' letters are the consonants . ' 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 ', ', or the end of sentence. 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 :

The biggest bounce is when the letter is at the end of the word and is accompanied by a ', such as the end of the first verse of :

''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) receive a waṣlah...

In most of the cases, the vowel that must be used before the alif waṣlah is obvious (the short or long vowel before alif waṣlah); but if it is preceded by a word ending on a sukun, then these are the rules:

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

2 Plural mim is the ending of هُمْ or كُمْ as noun suffixes and تُمْ as a verb suffix, which normally end as /hum/, /kum/ and /tum/ respectively. But in some cases /hum/ becomes /him/; nevertheless, it continues as /him-u/. These three always take a damma /-u/.

3 مِنْ is an exception to this, which always takes a fatha /-a/ if it be conjoined with the next word.

''Waqf''

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

1 on the fourth row is an exception to 'ending on any .' It's only in the case of hamza having , not otherwise.

In the case of the proper name /ʕamrun/, it is pronounced /ʕamr/ in pausa, and the last letter has no phonetical value (this writing convention is merely for the differentiation from the name /ʕumar/). And in fact, is a triptote (something rare in proper nouns, since they are usually diptotes).

See also

*
*
* Quran reading
* Quranic punctuation
*
*

Analogous and related fields

* Elocution, the analogous modern Western study.
* , the analogous classical Western study.
* , Hindu Vedic recital study.
* Phonetics
* Cantillation
*

References

Notes

Books and journals

*
*''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

Foundation of Tajweed
*"Theory and Practice of Tajwid", Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, IV, Leiden, Brill, 2007 (or still in press)

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Quran reciting
Phonology
Islamic terminology
Arabic language
Arabic phonology