Question

My Qur’an teacher, may Allah reward her immensely, keeps correcting me when I encounter words that have the rule of ikhfa’.  From my understanding ikhfa’ is the concealment of noon saakinah and tanween.  The tip of my tongue does not touch my hard palate, in fact it remains flat when I approach the ikhfa’ letters, is this method correct?

Answer

The  of the noon saakinah is indeed concealment of the noon saakinah, but its proper technique involves more than not touching the tip of the tongue to the gums of the two top from incisors (the articulation point of the noon). When hiding the noon saakinah, our tongue gets close to the articulation point of the letter that immediately follows it.  The key word here is close.  The tongue should not touch any part of the gums, teeth, or palate.

It may be that in your attempt to move your tongue far from the noon articulation point, you are not getting close to the articulation point of the next letter.

This technique takes a bit of practice to perfect.  You may need to break it down into steps, getting closer to the articulation point of the next letter slowly.  

Sometimes in a rush to get close to the next letter, the tongue touches the teeth, gums, or palate, and a noon can be heard clearly; other times, the posterior part of the tongue rises up, even though the next letter is not one of tafkheem, and the sound of the ikhfa’, is inappropriately heavy.  May Allah make easy for you and all Muslims the proper recitation of the Qur’an.