Question

Assalaamalaiikum wa rehmatullahi wa barakatahu,

I have one question, how should the quranic letters be pronounced??? 

I am an Indian lady living in Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates since past 13 years.  When I was a kid we learnt to read Qur’an and after I came to emirates I found out that we pronounce some of the Arabic letters very differently from the way the Arabs pronounce.

Those letters are   and  and actually there is one more letter, but I don’t know Arabic typing on my keyboard. 

O.K Let me number those three letters and explain.  As ALIF is first letter so BA stands for second and TA  for third and so on. So the letters which I am confused in pronunciation are letters number 4, 9, and 17.

In India we pronounce the 4^th letter   as  “sa”    

the  9^th letter  as “zaal”  and the 17^th letter  as “zuah”

BUT I heard the Arabs pronouncing it in a different way, I even joined the institution where I am learning to speak read and write the Arabic language, also I listen to the Arabic Qur’an cassette which has the Qur'anic recitation of Ash-Sheikh Sudais of Mecca Mukarramah Mosque.

Even on the Internet, I saw many sites who teach Arabic, and they all pronounce the 4^th letter as  “th”  example is thumma, thalatha, hadith but we say summa, salaasa, hadees. 

And the 9^th  letter as “th”   example is hatha means this, but we say haza. Then dhikr  we say zikr.  The 17^th letter  as “Tha”  in the word abudhabi but we say abuzaabi. So when we are reading Qur’an what should we and how should we pronounce the 4^th, 9^th and 17^th letter as??? 

Should we pronounce it the way I learnt or the way the Arabs do or both ways is correct.  When I sit to read Qur’an or when my kids read with their teacher they are confused as in school they learn Arabic language from Arabic speaking teacher and at home they read Qur’an from an ASIAN teacher both pronounce differently as explained above so how should we pronounce as we are confused?

Jazakallah

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

We are pleased that you are keen to learn the correct pronunciation of the letters, as indeed we can inadvertently change the meaning to a different meaning that what Allah has meant in the revelation by mispronouncing letters.  Studying the articulation point of the letters and making sure you use the parts of speech described in the articulation point lessons will help you gain knowledge and confidence as to which parts of speech should be used and which sound is correct.  Please see: http://www.abouttajweed.com/articulation_points.htm

http://www.abouttajweed.com/sidetongue.htm and http://www.abouttajweed.com/tiptong04.htm . 

In brief the correct way to pronounce the    ,  and  is as you have learned in the Arabic classes you have taken in Abu Dhabi and they way your heard Sheikh Sudais read the Qur’an and NOT like you learned as a child.  Please note that the top of the tip of the tongue needs to collide with the bottom edges of the two top front teeth for the  ,  , and . 

Insha’ Allah you will have confidence now in knowing the correct pronunciation of the Arabic letters and your children will learn the correct pronunciation and apply it when reading the Qur’an.

Wa iyyaakum.