Question

Assalamu alaikum,

With reference to the word "ta'mannaa" in Surah Yusuf I see from your site that there are two ways of reciting this in the way of Shaatibiyah - ishmaam and ikhtilaas.

I have always been taught that the two ways are in fact ishmaam and rawm. I have checked in my musshaf ul qiraa'aat and it states this, I have also perused the Baab Idghaam al-Kabeer in an-Nashr and it seems also to state ishmaam and rawm. Would you kindly clarify this for me? Which are the correct ways?

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh,

There are some terms that are interchanged in the old tajweed books, and the application of them passed down in authentic chains explain which term is actually meant.  There are three terms interchanged in An-Nashr, as well as the Shatibiyyah poem, sometimes meaning one thing, sometimes meaning another.  They are: , , and , the last word referring to the vowel, not the normal tajweed rule.

The first clarification to make is that  is only on the end of a word when stopping, never in a middle of a word.  Given that, we know then on the word  must not be  by the normal definition and must be instead .  Please see the chart comparing the two terms here.

In Ash-Shatibiyyah, Imam Ash-Shatibiyy said:

Imam Ash-Shaatibiyy chose the verb “hide” which  comes from, to describe  in the word .  In the chapter on the , he uses the command verb (meaning make ), when describing the different ways two letters of the same or similar type with the  relationship are read in the way of recitation of Imam  .  The explanation of Ash-Shaatibiyyah called , by Abdul-Fattaah Al-Qaadhee, states the following about this line of poetry:  , meaning the word    here is a term for , and he goes on explaining that this means, giving the vowel only part of one vowel count. In another explanation in the same chapter, he states , meaning, hiding it (the idghaam) and stealing its vowel, which is expressed by .

In summary then, the three terms are interchanged in early tajweed and recitation works, and the explanation of these works, which is done by those that have recited in authentic chains of transmission, are what informs us as to how to apply the specific term.  The use of the term in the case of  or other than stopping on the end of a word, is referring to .  The writing of the early works of tajweed and the recitation passed down in authentic chains go hand in hand in applying tajweed.  We need both to know how to apply correct tajweed rules.