Question
Assalaamu Alaikum,
When reciting an ayah which begins with a hamza waslah, how does one
determine which vowel to place on the alif? For example the beginning of
Ayah 5 of surah Al-Faatihah (ayah six if including the bismillah). Here
by
experience I know the ayah should begin with a kasra, but how do I know
which vowel to utilize in the numerous other instances this occurs in (I am
not an Arab and do not Arabic so I can't recognize verb states yet).
JazakAllah Khairun
Answer
Wa alaikum assalaam wa
rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.
The vowel used when
beginning hamzah al-wasl depends first of all, on the part of speech the word
it begins is. If it is a noun, the hamzah wasl always begins with a kasrah
(such as in
,
,
and
); if it is the
of
definite article “the”, it starts with a fat-h (such as:
,
);
if however the hamzah wasl begins a verb, we need to count to the third letter
and note the vowel on this verb; if the third letter has a kasrah or a fat-h,
the hamzah wasl then starts with a kasrah (as in:
,
)
. If, the third letter of the
verb has an original dhammah (such as:
,
,
or
)
the hamzah wasl will start with a dhammah. There
are a few cases of the third letter being a presented dhammah in the verb, and
in those few cases, the hamzah wasl starts with a kasrah.
We won’t discuss those here, but will cover them soon in the tidbit
lessons.
In the example you put
forth in your question, the word
is
a command form of a verb, so, we count three letters, which would be the
letter
, and we see it has a kasrah on it.
As stated above, if the third letter of a verb has a kasrah, the hamzah
wasl then begins with a kasrah, so that is the reason for it starting with a
kasrah.
We can give you a few
hints as to nouns, so you can by elimination, determine whether a word is a
noun or a verb, and thus know whether you need to count over three letters or
not. Only nouns take tanweens (they don't always take them, but if
there is a tanween, it is a noun), and only nouns have the female
, written as
or
on
the end of the word. There are
seven “irregular” nouns that start with hamzah wasl, and therefore would
have a kasrah when starting these words.
They are: 1)
2
)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
.
The other nouns that
start with hamzah al-wasl have an alif just before the last letter of the
word, as in:
,
,
,
.
Since these are nouns, the hamzah wasl would also would start with a
kasrah.
The words (they happen
to be nouns) that start with the alif lam of the definite article “the” as
stated previously, start with a fat-h.
Almost every other word
starting with a hamzah wasl then will be a verb.
In that case, you would need to count to the third letter and look at
the vowel on it to determine the whether to start the hamzah wasl with a
kasrah or a dhammah, unless it is one of the special words that have a
presented dhammah. Again, this will be covered soon, insha’ Allah in the tidbit
lessons.
There is more to it than
this, but this is a simplified way to almost always find how to start the
hamzah wasl without giving a grammar lesson.
Wa iyyakum.
