Fatḥah, kasrah and ḍammah

Every lesson so far has shown words with small marks above and below the letters, and left them unnamed. From this lesson the marks are taught. The first three are the short vowels.

What a short vowel mark is

The letters of a word are mostly consonants. The short vowels between them are not written as letters: each is a small mark set above or below the letter it follows. A letter with a vowel mark is read with that vowel after it: bā’ with fatḥah is ba, with kasrah bi, with ḍammah bu, as the transliteration on the cards below shows.

The text of the Qur’ān is written with all its marks, so the vowels are on the page, and reading a word is reading each letter with the mark it carries.

The marks

Each mark is shown on a dotted circle, which stands for any letter, and then on bā’ and on mīm.

• Fatḥah is a short slanted stroke written above the letter. It is the short a.
• Kasrah is the same short slanted stroke written below the letter. It is the short i.
• Ḍammah is a small curl like a tiny wāw, written above the letter. It is the short u.

A mark belongs to the letter it sits on, so look at the two together: the letter first, and its vowel after it. How each vowel is sounded is taught in the library's Tajwīd title.

In the words of earlier lessons you also saw marks of other kinds: a small circle, a doubled stroke, a small upright stroke on the stretching line. Each has a lesson of its own, from the next lesson on.

In the Qur’ān

The first word of the sixth verse of Sūrat aṭ-Ṭāriq carries the three marks and nothing else: ḍammah on khā’, kasrah on lām, fatḥah on qāf. Read it letter by letter: khā’ with ḍammah, lām with kasrah, qāf with fatḥah.

The first word of the second verse of Sūrat an-Nās has fatḥah on mīm, and kasrah on lām and on kāf.

The second word of the fifth verse of al-Fātiḥah has fatḥah on nūn, and ḍammah on bā’ and on dāl. The ʿayn carries a small circle instead: that is sukūn, the next lesson's mark.

Recall

• Where is kasrah written?
• Which mark looks like a small wāw?
• Is a vowel mark read before its letter or after it?

Answers: below the letter; ḍammah; after it.

Next

The next lesson teaches sukūn, the mark of a letter that no vowel follows.