Question

Assalaamu alaikum,

In the verse in surah AS-Saff verse 6: is there any accent that one must put on the word  to make the yaa' clear, or is it just recited normally as a kasrah joined with the seen? I know in other qira'aat it is made clear by saying " " which is why I ask.

Jazaakallaahu khair

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allah. 

The reason for the accent in the three special aayaat of the Qur'an is that there are two possible ways of understanding the phrases read without any kind of accent.  One of these places with an accent is in the following phrase: , and it is needed to show  the alif indicating a double in the first word of the phrase, where two meanings could be construed, one, the past tense singular ("he tasted) and the other, the correct, ("the two of them tasted"). The accent is then placed on the the fat-h of the to indicate that there is an alif in the verb, even though it is dropped due to the two saakin letters being next to each other.

The combination you are referring to: is free from this confusion because   has a dhammah on  unless it is, or adjuncted to a phrase after it, in which then has a kasrah .  In this case, is not an adjunctive phrase, but the  in the word is.  There then would be no chance of mixing up the phrase with any other meaning, even though there is a dropped in pronunciation, and therefore no need for an accent.  Grammatically, the meaning cannot be mixed up with another one, so no accent is needed to make clear the dropped . 

There are some of the other qira'aat that read the phrase as, but that falls under the  rules where some of the different qira'aat put a fat-h on the  in certain circumstances or words. Hafs 'an Aasim does this is some places too, but not in this case.