Hamzah and its seats

Lesson 7 taught the hamzah standing alone on the line. More often it is written on another letter, which carries it and says nothing itself: its seat. Three letters serve as seats: alif, wāw and yā’, and a yā’ that carries a hamzah loses its dots. Which seat a word uses follows rules of spelling that you need not learn in order to read: read the hamzah with the vowel mark written for it, and pass over the seat.

The letters

On an alif

A hamzah on an alif is written above it or below it, and in this text the place tells you the vowel. Written above, the hamzah has a fatḥah, a ḍammah, a ḍammatān or a sukūn with it, never a kasrah. Written below, it always has a kasrah, or a kasratān, with it.

On a wāw and on a yā’

Wāw with a hamzah has the hamzah above the wāw's round head. Yā’ with a hamzah has the hamzah on the body of a yā’ with no dots: in a word it looks like the short hook of lesson 1, with a hamzah above it in place of dots. Most often it has a kasrah with it.

The small hamzah

In some words the hamzah is written small, between two letters, carried by a stretching line (lesson 8), with its own vowel mark on the line beside it. Here it is shown above a bā’; in the text it rides the stretching line, which the spelling below names.

Alif with a maddah

Other prints write an alif and its maddah as one letter: alif with a maddah, the last card above. This text writes the alif and then the maddah as a mark on it (lesson 14), so this form does not occur in it, and you will meet it in other books.

In the Qur’ān

In the last verse of al-Fātiḥah the third word begins with an alif with the hamzah above, and a fatḥah.

The first word of the fifth verse begins with an alif with the hamzah below, and its kasrah.

A wāw with a hamzah, carrying a sukūn.

A yā’ with a hamzah, carrying a kasrah, in the middle of a word.

A small hamzah carried by a stretching line, with its fatḥah.

Three seats in one short verse: an alif with the hamzah below in the first word, with its kasrah; a yā’ with a hamzah in the middle of the second word, with a fatḥah; and an alif with the hamzah above in the last word, after the alif and the lām that begin it, with a fatḥah.

Recall

• Which three letters serve as the seat of a hamzah?
• Which vowel mark goes with a hamzah written below an alif?
• Does alif with a maddah occur in this text?

Answers: alif, wāw and yā’; a kasrah, or a kasratān; no, this text writes the alif and the maddah as two characters.

Next

The next lesson teaches two forms of letters you already know: tā’ marbūṭah and alif maqṣūrah.