Rules of Tajweed

The term “Tajweed” is an Arabic word, derived from the trilateral root “j-w-d”, meaning enhancement or to make something excellent, so, it means giving every letter its right pronunciation during reciting Quran.

  Tajweed is related with the history of “qira’t” as each reciter had his own set of Tajweed rules, with much overlap between them.   The first recorded science for Tajweed was developed by Abo Ubaid al- Qasim bin Salam, he was the first one who gave the rules of Tajweed names, and put it in his book called Al-qiraat.  

What is the purpose of Tajweed:

  Simply, Tajweed helps in giving a good performance and quality of recitation of Quran, which lead to the happiness of this world and the hereafter, for the reader and for listeners, and it also helps in maintenance of the tongue mentioning of the words of Allah.  

What is the rules of Tajweed:

  Studying Tajweed rules requires deep knowledge of the articulation points of each letter, which means, to know where the sound of letter should originate from in the human body, there are specific articulation point which rely on specific articulation area; the oral cavity, the nasal cavity, the throat, the tongue, and the lips. These are the only areas of the human body used to pronounce specific sounds.   One of Tajweed rules is to know the Meem Sakinah and apply its three different Tajweed rules for pronunciation which are:   – Idgham with Ghunnah: and it takes effect when a non-pronounced Meem at the end of a word is followed by a pronounced Meem that has Tashkil ” symbol” on it. The resulting sound is an extension of the Meem sound for two beats and the sound of the Ghunnah coming out of the nose. This same pronunciation applies for every Meem Mushaddadah even if it comes in the middle of a word.   -Oral Ikhfaa: it takes effect when the non-pronounced Meem at the end of a word is followed by a Baa’ at the beginning of the following word. The application of this will be a fading out of the Meem sound into the sound of the letter Baa’.   – Oral Izhar: it takes effect when the non-pronounced Meem at the end of a word is followed by any letter excluding the Baa’ and another Meem, there are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, if you exclude the Meem and the Baa, you get 26 letters to which this Tajweed rule applies. When Oral Izhar is applied the sound of the Meem is articulated clearly without Idgham or Ikhfaa.   – There is also what known as Iqlaab, which means to convert the letter Baa’. If a Noon Saakinah or Tanween is followed by Baa’, it is converted into hidden Meem and the reader make a Ghunnah.   -If a Meem or a NOON has a Shaddah, the reader must make a ghunnah of two beats on it, for example, if the reader stops on a word ending with Noon or Meem Mushaddadah, the Gunnah for the Meem or Noon Mushadad still have to be applied.   Now, lets talk about another rule of Tajweed, it is the Tanween:-   Noon Saakinah is a Noon without Harakah or with a Sukoon above it, and it is different than Tanween. Tanween is a Noon Saakinah which comes at the end of nouns, and it is pronounced but not written. Noon Saakinah is a letter, Tanween is a symbol.    

Learning of Tajweed rules:

  It is easy now to learn Tajweed rules online for adults and children. There are a lot of courses online for this purpose, and these courses are designed to improve reading and recitation of the holy Quran students.