Learn · Unit 9 of 9

The tajweed rule families

A page can tell you what the names mean; only a teacher can tell you whether your sound is right. What this page can do that most cannot is show you the rule firing in the actual text, in colour, on the same mushaf face you read everywhere else on this site.

The 7 rule families

These are the names you will meet first. Mark one as known once you can spot it in a word without being told it is there.

• Izhar إظهار

  Clear pronunciation. When noon sakinah or tanwin is followed by one of the six throat letters (ء ه ع ح غ خ), the noon sound is pronounced plainly, with no blending and no nasalization.

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• Idgham إدغام

  Merging. When noon sakinah or tanwin is followed by one of the letters of يرملون, the noon merges into that letter: with nasalization for ي ن م و, without it for ل ر.

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• Iqlab إقلاب

  Conversion. When noon sakinah or tanwin is followed by ب, the noon sound converts to a meem, held with light nasalization.

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• Ikhfa إخفاء

  Concealment. Before the remaining fifteen letters, the noon is neither fully pronounced nor fully merged: a light hidden nasal sound bridges into the next letter.

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• Ghunnah غنّة

  Nasalization: the sound held in the nose, most clearly on doubled noon (نّ) and doubled meem (مّ), typically for about two counts.

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• Qalqalah قلقلة

  Echo or bounce. The five letters ق ط ب ج د, when carrying sukun, are released with a slight bounce of sound. Stronger at the end of an ayah.

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• Madd مدّ

  Lengthening. A vowel sound stretched beyond its short length: the natural madd runs about two counts, and specific signs in the mushaf mark longer stretches of four to six counts.

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The 20 rules the mushaf marks, and how often

Our copy of the marked text carries 87,015 coloured spans across 6,236 ayat, in exactly twenty classes. Four of them share a grey, two share a mauve and three share a green, so the name beside each swatch is not decoration: colour is never the only signal on this site.

The 4 madds, from 2 counts to 6

The madd colours are a deliberate ramp, not four unrelated blues. On a light page the stretch gets darker as the count grows; on a dark page it gets lighter. Read them left to right and the ordering is the lesson.

• Natural madd The plain stretch of about two counts, with nothing after it that lengthens it further.
• Permissible madd A madd letter at the end of a word with a hamza opening the next: reciters read it at two, four or six counts.
• Obligatory madd, connected The madd letter and the hamza sit inside the same word: about four to five counts.
• Necessary madd A madd letter followed by a sukun or a shadda: about six counts.

20 real ayat, one per rule

Each ayah below is the real marked text, and the coloured part is the exact span our data marks. If your browser does not support the colour layer, the ayah and the rule name are still here: nothing is carried by hue alone.

Hamzat wasl

The connecting hamza. It is pronounced when you begin on it and skipped when you run into it from the word before.

وَٱلۡفَجۡرِ

Lam shamsiyyah

The lam of al- is written but not read; the sun letter after it doubles instead.

وَٱلضُّحَىٰ

Izhar

Noon sakinah or tanwin before one of the six throat letters: the noon stays clear and separate.

وَلَيَالٍ عَشۡرٖ

Izhar shafawi

Meem sakinah before any letter except meem and ba: the meem stays clear.

لَمۡ يَلِدۡ وَلَمۡ يُولَدۡ

Ikhfa

Noon sakinah or tanwin before one of fifteen letters: a light hidden nasal bridge into the next letter.

خَلَقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ

Ikhfa shafawi

Meem sakinah before ba: the lips do not quite close and the sound is hidden with a nasal hum.

لَّسۡتَ عَلَيۡهِم بِمُصَيۡطِرٍ

Idgham with ghunnah

Noon sakinah or tanwin merges into ي ن م و and the nasal sound is held.

جَزَآءٗ وِفَاقًا

Idgham without ghunnah

Noon sakinah or tanwin merges into ل or ر with no nasal hold.

وَلَمۡ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدُۢ

Idgham shafawi

Meem sakinah before another meem: the two become one held nasal meem.

فَأَتۡبَعُوهُم مُّشۡرِقِينَ

Iqlab

Noon sakinah or tanwin before ب: the noon sound turns into a meem.

كِرَامِۭ بَرَرَةٖ

Ghunnah

A doubled noon or meem, held in the nose for about two counts.

ثُمَّ نَظَرَ

Qalqalah

One of ق ط ب ج د carrying sukun, released with a small bounce of sound.

ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ

Natural madd

The plain stretch of about two counts, with nothing after it that lengthens it further.

وَنَرَىٰهُ قَرِيبٗا

Permissible madd

A madd letter at the end of a word with a hamza opening the next: reciters read it at two, four or six counts.

وَٱلطُّورِ

Obligatory madd, connected

The madd letter and the hamza sit inside the same word: about four to five counts.

وَحَدَآئِقَ غُلۡبٗا

Obligatory madd, separated

The madd letter ends one word and a hamza opens the next: about four to five counts.

ذَوَاتَآ أَفۡنَانٖ

Necessary madd

A madd letter followed by a sukun or a shadda: about six counts.

يسٓ

Silent

Written in the mushaf but not pronounced.

يَفۡقَهُواْ قَوۡلِي

Idgham mutajanisayn

Two letters made at the same point in the mouth merge into one.

وَمَهَّدتُّ لَهُۥ تَمۡهِيدٗا

Idgham mutaqaribayn

Two letters made at neighbouring points merge into one.

قُل رَّبِّ إِمَّا تُرِيَنِّي مَا يُوعَدُونَ

Where these colours come from

Where you will see this next

The Quran Habit app marks these rules directly in the mushaf text, so the colours meet you where you read rather than only where you study. Get the app.

Questions people ask

What is tajweed?

The craft of pronouncing the Quran the way it was transmitted: which letter is made where, which sounds merge, which are held, and how long a vowel is stretched. It is taught by listening to a teacher and corrected by ear; a page can only name the rules.

What is the difference between ikhfa, idgham, izhar and iqlab?

All four describe what happens to a noon with no vowel, or a tanwin, depending on the letter that follows it. Izhar keeps the noon clear, idgham merges it into the next letter, iqlab turns it into a meem sound, and ikhfa hides it as a light nasal bridge. Which one fires is decided entirely by the following letter.

Which five letters carry qalqalah?

Qaf, ta, ba, jim and dal, remembered together as qutb jad, and only when they carry a sukun. The bounce is strongest at the end of an ayah.

Are the colours on this page the standard tajweed colours?

No. There is no single standard. This palette is Quran Habit's own, tuned for contrast so every rule clears the WCAG AA floor on the surfaces we use. Other publishers use other schemes, and we do not reproduce any of them.

Do I have to learn tajweed to read the Quran?

These pages describe the rules rather than issue rulings on what is required of you. What is safe to say is practical: the rules are what make a recitation sound the way you have heard it, and they are learned fastest with a teacher who can hear you.

Why is one rule spelled qalaqah in your data and qalqalah on the page?

The upstream data class is spelled qalaqah. We key on the data spelling so the colour cannot silently fail, and display the usual transliteration.

How many tajweed rule families are there?

7 on this page: Izhar, Idgham, Iqlab, Ikhfa, Ghunnah, Qalqalah, Madd. They are the names you meet first, and they are groupings: the 20 classes the marked text actually carries sit underneath them, and the table on this page lists all of them.

How many tajweed rules does the mushaf mark, and how often?

Twenty classes. Our copy of the marked text carries 87,015 coloured spans across 6,236 ayat, and the full table on this page lists every class with its own count. The most frequent by a distance is Hamzat wasl, at 13,252 spans.

What is madd, and how long is each one?

Madd is the stretching of a vowel, measured in counts. The four on this page run from 2 counts to 6, and their colours are a deliberate ramp rather than four unrelated blues: the stretch gets darker as the count grows on a light page, and lighter on a dark one.

Where does the tajweed data on this page come from?

The base markup derives from quran.com word-level tajweed data, re-anchored to the KFGQPC Uthmani Hafs text this site sets its Arabic in. Two classes are ours: izhar and izhar shafawi, together 17,116 spans, were authored in-house from the standard noon sakinah and meem sakinah partitions and checked letter by letter against an independent copy of the text.

These lessons cover reading mechanics only. For recitation itself, learn with a teacher; text can show you the rules, not your own voice.