The Lengthening

Its linguistic definition: Extra

Its applied definition: Lengthening of the sound with a letter of the medd letters.

The medd letters are in the following three cases:

  1.     The alif is always in this state, which is an alif saakinah, preceded by a fathah:

2. The saakinah preceded by a kasrah

  3.     The   saakinah preceded by a dhammah:

All three of these medd letters appear in one word in the following examples:  

The leen letters

            The  saakinah preceded by a fat-hah, such as:

             2.     The  sakinah preceded by a fat-hah), such as: .

The medd is divided into two groups:

  1.        (The Original Medd)

   2.       (The Secondary Medd)  

The Natural Lengthening

Its definition: It is the medd (lengthening) that without which the letter cannot exist (the timing), and it does not stop due to a hamzah or a sukoon.

Its indications: There should not be a hamzah before it, and there should not be a hamzah or sukoon after it.

It is named original because it is the origin of all mudood (lengthenings).  It is called natural because the person with a natural measure will not increase its measure nor decrease it.

Its timing: It is lengthened two vowel counts.

The timing of each count depends on the speed of the reciter.  Each vowel should be equal in count to the other, and the mudood of two, four, five, and six counts should be equal to that many vowels. 

Examples of (the natural lengthening ):

In all these three words, have a natural medd  with different medd letters and will have the timing of two vowel counts.  A note, the word  has a natural medd as long as we do not stop on the word.  As stated before in the indications of the natural medd there cannot be a sukoon after the medd letter.  If we were to stop on this word, the letter  would acquire a presented sukoon, and the medd would no longer be considered a natural medd, but would be a different kind of medd, to be discussed in future tidbit lessons.

Included in is the group of letters " ", which are letters that start some surahs of the Qur’an.  If any one of these letters is at the beginning of a surah, the letter is read with two vowel counts.  An example of this would be: .  Another example is in the letters and pronounced as in the opening verse of surah Maryam: .