Question

Assalamu alaikum,

My Imaam says that if you stop on a madd muttassil (e.g. fis samaaaa) in Hafs in the way of Shaatibiyyah one is allowed to stop with four or six counts. He insists this is detailed in the poem of Imaam Shaatibiyy, but I do not recall reading it on your site. Is this so, and can you point out the section of the poem detailing this?

Was salam

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh,

This concept is under the heading of two reasons for one medd occurring in one word , and  this concept is not unique to Hafs, but of course the vowel counts for an individual word varies in the qira’aat.  When we look at the word  we see the obvious , but when stopping on this word, we also have the conditions for  , which is a medd letter followed by one voweled letter and we are stopping on it with a transient or condition sukoon.  The lengthening of  is two, four, or six vowel counts.  The lengthening of  is four or five vowel counts.  Since   is considered a stronger medd, we cannot employ  if we are lengthening it in our reading two vowel counts.  If we are lengthening  four vowel counts in our recitation and  also four vowel counts, we then stop on this word with four vowel counts with both reasons for the medd being present. 

If we are lengthening five vowel counts in our recitation and  four vowel counts, then we would stop on this word with five vowel counts and there would be only one reason for the lengthening, being .

If however, we are lengthening all of  six vowel counts in our recitation, then we would stop on this word with six vowel counts with only  being the reason for the medd.  Six vowel counts for  is considered similar or in the same category as , which is the strongest of all mudood. 

In conclusion the only time we would stop on the word  or any other word with the same type of conditions with six vowel counts is if we are lengthening all  six vowel counts. 

This is a point often misunderstood by some in tajweed, but clearly laid out in the old classic tajweed books by the famous scholars. 

Please see the lesson on the stronger of two reasons:  and you would note that there are lines of poetry about the two reasons for a medd, but they are not from Ash-Shaatibiyyah. Click here.