Question

Assalamou alaikoum.

First of all, may Allah (SWT) reward you for this wonderful, I’m learning a lot.

I just had one question….for the noon sakinah and tanween ikhfaa rule, does the “noon” sound come out or there should be only ghunnah? In the explanation it says that the tongue should be close to the articulation point of the next letter, but sometimes even when doing that, some “noon” sound comes out (and not just ghunnah), would that be wrong?  

Thanks a lot for your help.

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh,

Jazakum Allahu khairan for you kind words and we pray that you continue to learn and benefit from this site.

The definition of al-ikhfa’ is: The pronunciation of a non-voweled letter stripped of any shaddah, characterized somewhere between an  and an    with a ghunnah remaining on the first letter, in this case the  saakinah and the tanween.

The letter  then should not be heard clearly, nor should it not be heard at all, instead the sound should be in between.  If the tongue does not touch anything, the  will not be heard clearly, but there will be a trace of the  in the sound. 

A common mistake made by some students of the Qur’an when trying to hide the  is touching the tongue up to the articulation point of the  while holding the ghunnah sound, or touching the articulation point of the next letter while making the ghunnah, or touching the teeth.  Some others make the mistake of letter the posterior portion of the tongue touch the roof of the mouth during the ikhfa’, and this mistake also leads to the sound of a .  In these cases, a  is heard quite clearly, and this is not correct.

The following is an example of the correct sounding ikhfa’.  Please click here to listen to it.

You are most welcome.