The Lengthenings (Part 2)

That Which Follows the Natural Lengthening Rules

The following are two different medd (or lengthenings) that follow the count of the natural medd , meaning they also have two vowel counts. 

        1.     The Lesser Connective  Lengthening

         2.     The Substitute Lengthening                  

This lesson will discuss the “lesser connective lengthening”, or .  Insha’ Allah the upcoming lesson will cover the “substitute lengthening, or .

The Lesser Connecting Medd

It is a medd that comes from the vowel on a (pronoun or possessive pronoun ) which meets the following conditions:

A on the end of a word (last letter) that is not part of the original make up of the word, representing the singular third person male.  It is voweled either with a dhammah or a kasrah, positioned between two voweled letters, the reader is not stopping on it, and it is not followed by a hamzah.  When all these requirements are met the dhammah on the  (if there is one) becomes lengthened into a lengthened  or the kasrah on the  becomes lengthened like a lengthened .  When stopping on this  we stop with a regular sukoon, and the two count medd is dropped. 

Examples:

In this above phrase from the Glorious Qur’an there are two examples of the lesser connecting medd.  The first example is in the first word.  The last letter of the first word is a pronoun not part of the original word, representing a male third person, located between two voweled letters (the  with a fat-h before it and the  with a fat-h after), the  has a dhammah on it, and not followed by a hamzah.  Therefore, if we read this in continuation with the next word (meaning we do not stop on this word), we lengthen the dhammah on the  so that it becomes the length of a lengthened , which would be two vowel counts.  Please note the small  after the .  This tells us that there is an extra .

The second example of the lesser connecting medd is in the third word.  Again, it fulfils all the required conditions of the lesser connecting medd, but this time the possessive  has a kasrah on it.  When we read this word in continuum with what follows it, we lengthen the kasrah so that it becomes a lengthened , getting two vowel counts.  Here, you can also note the symbol denoting a small  after the ; it somewhat looks like a lesser sign in mathematics.

If the  has a sukoon on it (when continuing and when stopping), there is no lengthening of the vowel on the .  If the letter before, and or after the  has a sukoon, there is no lengthening of the vowel of the . 

Exceptions to :

There are only two exceptions to the rule:

The First:

Here there is NO medd of the   even though all the conditions are met.

The Second:

Here there IS a medd, even though all of the conditions have not been met (there is a sukoon before the ).

This is the way Hafs ‘an ‘Aasim reads these ‘aayaat.

The pronoun   of the female noun   which means “this” referring to a female object, follows lesser connecting medd rule if it is between two voweled letters. As in: