Maddah

The last lesson taught the long vowels. This lesson teaches one sign that is written over the letter of a long vowel in certain places: the maddah. Its name means lengthening, and that is what it marks: a vowel held longer than a plain long vowel. How much longer, and in which words, is taught in the library's Tajwīd title; this lesson teaches where the sign stands and what it looks like.

The sign

The maddah is a small wavy line, like a stretched tilde, written above the letter. Here it is shown on an alif, where it stands most often.

Where it stands

In this text the maddah is written over an alif, a wāw or a yā’ (the dotless yā’ of lesson 16 among them), over the small alif of the last lesson, and over the small wāw and small yā’ of lesson 19, in two kinds of place:

• where the long vowel meets a hamzah, in the same word or, often, at the end of a word whose next word begins with a hamzah;
• where the long vowel meets a letter with a shaddah, as in the last word of al-Fātiḥah.

Some sūrahs open with letters written apart, with no vowel marks, and a maddah stands over some of those letters too; and six words that begin with a hamzah and then an alif with a maddah stand outside the two kinds. How any of these is read is the Tajwīd title's.

Other prints write an alif and its maddah as a single letter, which the next lesson shows. This text writes the alif, and then the maddah as a mark on it, so the spellings below name the maddah as a mark of the alif.

In the Qur’ān

The last word of al-Fātiḥah has an alif with a maddah, and after it a lām with a shaddah.

Here the alif with a maddah is followed by a hamzah in the same word. The hamzah carries a fatḥatān with no alif after it, as lesson 12 said of a word that ends in a hamzah standing after an alif.

Here the maddah stands on the alif that ends the second word, and the third word begins with a hamzah, written on an alif. In this verse every alif is picked out: three. Only the first of them carries a maddah.

A maddah on a wāw. The lām has a ḍammah, the wāw after it carries the maddah, and the next word of the verse begins with a hamzah. The alif at the end of the word carries a small round circle, one of the muṣḥaf's signs, taught in lesson 19.

Recall

• Over which letters is the maddah written?
• What does it look like?
• Where do you learn how long a vowel with a maddah is held?

Answers: over an alif, a wāw or a yā’, over the small alif, and over the muṣḥaf's small wāw and small yā’; a small wavy line above the letter; in the library's Tajwīd title.

Next

The next lesson teaches the hamzah and its seats: the hamzah written on an alif, a wāw or a yā’, and the small hamzah on a stretching line.