Tajwid

The history of tajwid is tied to the history of qira'at, 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 science 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.[1] He made the reality, transmitted through reciters of every generation, a science with defined rules, terms, and enunciation.[2][3]

Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid (859 - 936 CE) wrote a book called Kitab al-Sab’ fil-qirā’āt "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 ash-Shatibiyyah. 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.[4]

Ibn al-Jazari (1350 - 1429 CE) wrote two large poems about Qira'at and tajwid. One was Durrat Al-Maa'nia (Arabic: الدرة المعنية‎) , in the readings of three major reciters, added to the seven in the Shatibiyyah, making it ten. The other is Tayyibat An-Nashr (Arabic: طيبة النشر‎), which is 1014 lines on the ten major reciters in great detail, of which he also wrote a commentary.

Knowledge of the actual tajwīd rules is a community duty (farḍ al-kifāya), meaning that at least one person in every community must know it. There is a difference of opinion on the ruling for individuals. Dr. Shadee el-Masry states that it is an individual obligation (farḍ al-'ayn) on every Muslim to recite the opening chapter of the Qur'an (al-fatiha) with correct tajwīd, though they do not need to know the terms and definitions of the rules themselves.[5] 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.[6]

The central Quranic verse about tajwid is verse 73:4: "...and recite the Qur'an with measured recitation." The word tartīl Arabic: تَرْتِيْل‎, as used in this verse, is often also used in hadith in conjunction with its command. It means to articulate slowly, carefully, and precisely.[7]

Abu Dawud's hadith collection has a chapter heading titled "Recommendation of [reciting with] tartīl 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 (Arabic: رَتِّلْ‎) 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 (Arabic: مَدًّا‎): "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 (Arabic: كَانَ يَمُدُّ مَدًّا‎) (Sunan Abi Dawud 1465)." This narration also shows that even the companions of the prophet used some terms which are still used today in tajwīd rules.

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 و ہ ي‎

The Arabic definite article 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 هـ و ي‎

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

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 (madd or 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.

Prolongation refers to the number of morae (beats of time) that are pronounced when a voweled letter (fatḥah, ḍammah, kasrah) is followed by a madd 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 madd letter, it is held for four or five morae when followed by a hamzah (ء) and six morae when followed by a shaddah.[8] 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 ‎

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.[9] 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":[9]

قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ ٱلْفَلَقِ‎

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":[9]

تَبَّتْ يدَاۤ اَبِی لَهَبٍ وَّتَبَّ ‎

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...

بِسْمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحْمٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ‎

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 (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 value(this writing convention is merely for the differentiation from the name عُمَر /ʕumar/). And in fact, عمرو is a triptote (something rare in proper nouns, since they are usually diptotes).

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• Qira'at
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• Essential Ilm, lessons about Arabic and reciting the Quran with tajweed.
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