Tā’ marbūṭah and alif maqṣūrah

The last lesson taught the hamzah and the letters it sits on. This lesson teaches two more forms, met most at the end of a word. Each is an old friend in a new shape: one is a tā’ written like hā’, the other is a yā’ written without its dots.

The letters

Tā’ marbūṭah

Tā’ marbūṭah is the shape of hā’ at the end of a word, with the two dots of tā’ above it. The name means the tied tā’. It is written only at the end of a noun, and like alif it joins to the letter before it and never to the letter after it, so it has two shapes: alone and at the end. It carries a vowel mark or a tanwīn like any last letter.

Every Qaida states one thing about it, and this lesson states only that: it is read as t when the word runs on, and as h when the reader stops on it. How a reader stops is the library's Tajwīd title's. The transliteration gives it no letter of its own.

Alif maqṣūrah

Alif maqṣūrah is the shape of yā’ at the end of a word, without its dots. It stands for a long ā, and in this print it usually carries the small alif above it, which you met in lesson 13. The transliteration gives it no letter of its own either. Unlike tā’ marbūṭah it can also stand inside a written word, which is why its card shows four shapes: where an ending is joined after the long ā, as in the second word of 91:1, and in one word the print writes with a dotless yā’ carrying a sukūn in its middle, the second word of 78:29.

One thing about this print needs saying. It writes every yā’ at the end of a word without dots, in this same shape, so the shape alone does not tell you which letter you are reading. The marks do. With a small alif above it, the letter is alif maqṣūrah. After a kasrah, with no small alif, it is a yā’ written without its dots: the first word of 78:3 and the third word of 97:1 end that way. The print also leaves the small alif out where the next word begins with alif waṣlah, as in the fourth word of 83:2, and after a fatḥatān, as in the sixth word of 2:2. The spelling below names every one of them alif maqṣūrah, because that is the character the print writes.

In the Qur’ān

The third word of this verse ends in tā’ marbūṭah carrying a kasratān. The fourth word ends the same way.

The first word of this verse ends in alif maqṣūrah with the small alif above it, and the last word in tā’ marbūṭah with a fatḥatān.

In this verse both forms come together. The second word ends in the dotless shape after a kasrah, with no small alif, and carrying a fatḥah of its own: it is a yā’. The last two words each end in tā’ marbūṭah with a ḍammatān.

Recall

• Where in a word is tā’ marbūṭah written?
• What tells tā’ marbūṭah from hā’?
• In this print, how do you know that a dotless yā’ shape at the end of a word stands for a long ā?

Answers: only at the end; the two dots above it; by the small alif written above it.

Next

The next lesson teaches the article, the alif and lām written at the front of a noun, and the two ways it is written: with a sukūn before the moon letters, and with a shaddah on the next letter after the sun letters.