The definition of the  saakinah:  It is a  free from any vowel, and which has a fixed sukoon when continuing reading and when stopping.

This excludes the  that was originally without a vowel, but obtained one because the next letter also had a sukoon.  In the Arabic language it is not allowed to have two non-voweled letters next to each other; one will automatically obtain a vowel to eliminate this problem.

The  saakinah can be in the middle of a word or at the end of a word.  It can be in a noun, a verb, or a preposition or particle.

Included in the  saakinah rules is (the meem of plurality).  A  saakinah at the end of a word can sometimes, but not always indicate a plural, such as the possessive “their” or “your” or “them”, such as which means: for you plural, or , which means, “they have”.

The saakinah has three possible rules:

       1.  Hiding

       2.   Merging

       3.   Clear

Oral Concealment

Its linguistic definition: hidden

Its applied definition: The pronunciation of a non-voweled letter, stripped of any “shaddah”, characterized as between clear
 () and merged (), with the ghunnah remaining on the first letter, which is in this case the .

Its letters: It has one letter which is the.

If a is followed immediately by a  , and this only occurs between two words, we then close our lips for the  with an accompanying ghunnah.  This is called .  It is called because the  has the characteristic of the , meaning in between  and since the lips are close with the letter , then separate with the letter .  It is called   because the  and is articulated from the two lips.  A lip in Arabic is, but the word is also used for “oral”.   could be translated as “oral concealment”.

Examples:

The last letter of the second word of this aayah immediately above is a saakinah; the first letter of the next word is a therefore  (oral hiding) rule is applied.  The lips close on with the  the sound is held with a ghunnah for the appropriate period of time, then the lips separate with the letter . 

Click here to listen to this aayah

In this aayah, the last letter of the first word is a  saakinah, and the first letter of the next word is a , so  (oral hiding) rule is applied as explained above.  

The next tidbit lesson will, insha’ Allah continue with the other  saakinah rules.