The muṣḥaf’s small letters

Besides the vowel marks, the muṣḥaf writes a few small letters above and below the line, and two small circles above an alif. They are not letters of the word: they are the muṣḥaf’s own signs, telling a reader something about the letter they stand on. This lesson names each one and says where it stands. What each asks of a reader is the library’s Tajwīd title’s, and the lesson says nothing more.

The signs

The small wāw and the small yā’

The small wāw nearly always stands after a hā’ that carries a ḍammah at the end of a word, and the small yā’ after a hā’ that carries a kasrah. That hā’ is the pronoun ending hu or hi; what the small letter asks of a reader is the Tajwīd title’s. In a few words the small wāw stands instead after a wāw with a ḍammah inside the word, as in the fifth word of 2:251.

The small yā’ above

A small yā’ written above a stretching line inside a word, after a kasrah or with the kasrah on the line itself. It is rare, standing thirty-eight times in the Qur’ān, and it stands where this print writes a small yā’ in a word that it writes elsewhere with a full yā’: compare the third word of 2:124 with the seventh word of 3:33.

The small nūn above

A small nūn written above a stretching line, after a nūn with a ḍammah. It stands once in the Qur’ān, in the seventh word of 21:88.

The small mīm above and below

The small mīm above stands above a nūn that carries no mark, or above a fatḥatān or ḍammatān. The small mīm below stands below a kasratān. The Tajwīd title explains them.

The small sīn

A small sīn written above or below a ṣād, where the word is read with sīn. It stands above a ṣād in two words, in 2:245 and 7:69, and below one in a single word, in 52:37. In five other places the small sīn above stands on no letter, between two words or at the end of a verse, as in 83:14 and 18:1; what it asks of a reader there is the Tajwīd title’s.

The round and the oblong circle

The small round circle stands above an alif that is written and not read, most often the alif that closes a verb ending in wāw, and in a few words above a wāw, as in the third word of 83:4, or a yā’. The small oblong circle stands above an alif that is read only when the reader stops on it. It stands sixty-six times in the Qur’ān, all above an alif, and sixty-one of them in one short word of three letters, alone or with a wāw or fā’ joined to its front.

In the Qur’ān

The second word of each of these two verses ends in a hā’ with its small wāw, then its small yā’.

The small yā’ above and the small nūn above, each on a stretching line.

The small mīm above, on a nūn with no mark, and the small mīm below, under a kasratān.

The small sīn above a ṣād, and below one.

The round circle above the alif that closes a verb, and the oblong circle above an alif.

Recall

• Where does the small wāw stand?
• What does the small round circle stand above?
• Which of these signs stands once in the whole Qur’ān?

Answers: after a hā’ with a ḍammah at the end of a word; an alif that is written and not read; the small nūn above, and the small sīn below.

Next

The next lesson, the last of this stage, teaches the pause marks that stand between words and the sign of a prostration, and then reads al-Fātiḥah letter by letter.