Question

Assalamu'alaykum,

JazakAllahu khairan for your effort, may Allah reward you greatly.

I understand that meem and noon has intrinsic ghunnah and their ghunnah has to be emphasized when they carry the shaddah.

Sometimes I hear, some qaari bring the ghunnah further in their reading. For example, what is the proper way to read "maa", meem with mad bil alif. Should the ghunnah be only on the meem, or should it continue on the sound of the mad. This happens a lot, especially when noon or meem carries mad jaiz or mad lazim, some people drags the ghunnah of noon or meem together with their mudood. Is this something that is unavoidable or a mistake in tajweed?

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.

Wa iyyaakum and may Allah reward you also for your beneficial questions.

The ghunnah, as indicated in the question, is intrinsic to the two letters and , and should not be present in any other letter.  The ghunnah of the idghaam with a ghunnah comes from the , not from the following letter.

It is a common error by some (both in Arabs and in non-Arabs) to have a nasalization of many letters in addition to the and , and this is most frequently found  in the medd letters, particularly the letter , but also sometimes found in the alif and lengthened , even if the medd is only two vowel counts.  It is avoidable and can be fixed with practice.  The sound needs to be focused out the mouth and not back up through the nasal passage.  One can check whether this is present or not in their recitation by closing off the nostrils while lengthening one of the medd letters.

Two other letters that are not medd letters but sometimes erroneously read with a ghunnah are the  and .  Some students of the Qur’an have a ghunnah present in almost all the letters, but again, with Allah's help and work, it can be fixed. .

Wa assalaam alaikum