It is established that the reader of the Qur’an must start reciting with a voweled letter, never a sukoon.  It is also an established fundamental of reading the Qur’an that stopping is always with a sukoon on the last letter that is recited, never a vowel, except with a way of stopping called  which will be discussed, Allah willing, later.  Some words are not written with a vowel on the first letter, and, as stated starting a word with a sukoon is not allowed.  In this case an extra hamzah is put on the beginning of the word.  This is called hamzah al-wasl,  , and is used to connect it  ( to the point of a sukoon that is present at the beginning of the word.  The hamzah al-wasl looks like an alif with a little letter  over it, as in:

The Definition of  :  It is an extra hamzah at the beginning of the word, established (pronounced) when starting, dropped when continuing.

This is exemplified in the following verse:

In this verse the hamzaat (plural of hamzah) in the words    - -

 are all , meaning that they are dropped when continuing (when joining the word with the word preceding it), and are established when starting (starting with the word). It is called  because it connects or joins ( ) to a point with a sukoon. 

Its Locations: 

 is found in: 

1. Verbs
   
2. Nouns
   
3. Participles
    

Note:   can be in regular forms of the above three parts of grammar, which is the norm, or rarely in irregular forms.

 Next lesson, insha’ Allah, we will specifically discuss the occurrence of hamzah al-wasl in verbs, and how to determine the vowel used when starting on the verb that has a hamzah  al-wasl.