Question

What is the definition of sakinah? I know when there is jazm on it or when we stop on stop on some letter and drop its vowel but considering huroof mad in Quran there are words like there is wow with nothing on it no vowel or jazm and preceding it is a letter with dhamma or written on top of it is a letter with dhamma so is this huroof mad then?
I know alif is not huroof madd when it has jazm because it is then hamza pronounced with jerk
Jazakallah

Answer

Assalaam alaikum.

Saakinah means the absence of a vowel.  Some books in Urdu refer to the sukoon as “jazm” but this is not proper terminology.  Jazm is an Arabic grammar term, and not all sukoons are from a jazm and not all jazm conditions cause sukoons. 

When stopping on a word ending in a medd letter, such as a  saakinah preceded by a letter with a dhammah, we stop with a two vowel count lengthening.  An example of this would be when stopping on the word: .  The alif at the end of the word is not at all part of the word and is written for us to understand that the word has ended.

If the word we are stopping on ends with the letter , but it is not preceded by a dhammah, we stop on the word with a  saakinah.  An example is when stopping on the word which would have a slight lengthening less than two vowel counts because of the leen letter, or on the word which requires more practice because of the need to pronounce the  with no vowel and then the  also without any accompanying vowel.  

The true letter alif is always saakinah and is a medd letter; this is different than the hamzah which sometimes sits on top of an alif.  The hamzah can sit on any of the three medd letters and can also sit on a tooth, or not just be written without sitting on anything.  Please see http://www.abouttajweed.com/100801.htm and http://www.abouttajweed.com/160901.htm  for more information.