7th Muharram al-Harām 1443

Tilāwah: al-Aḥzāb 40 – 43, ʿAbasa: 11 – 42

Qirāʾah: Ḥafṣ, Ibn Kathīr, Warsh, Khalaf, al-Kisāʾī

The recitation, in its second consecutive instance, included a verse containing the name of Nabi Muḥammed^SAW. The verses of Sūrah al-Aḥzāb talked about the remembrance of Allāh^TA and the position of the Messenger^SAW as a luminous sun. The recitation contained beautiful renderings of hijāzī, albeit quite brief, built on a Warsh base that also included the ṣilat of Ibn Kathīr. Ḥafṣ’ was the other prominent reading. Eventually, the Qārī moved into Sūrah al-Baqarah and the audience was enthralled with the heart-rending performance that included the imālah of Hāʾ al-Thaʾnīth of al-Kisāʾī. The entire recitation reawakened the memories of how Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin^RA shone like a sun when he addressed mumineen from the takht-i-imāmī. The Qārī’s soulful renderings were etched in the memory of the audience.

Some aḥkām from today’s recitation:

The imālah of the hāʾ al-taʾnīth: This imālah is unlike any other and is performed by al-Kisāʾī alone in the Shātibiyah path. Here, words ending with the letter tāʾ of femininity (pronounced hāʾ upon waqf) such as (نعمة) are the subject of imālah. The effect of imālah on the “hāʾ” is such that the preceding letter is also impact and becomes maksūr. Thus, niʿmah would become niʿmeh. Today’s recitation contained several instances of the imālah of hāʾ al-taʾnīth of al-Kisāʾī.

The non-idghām of Khalaf: Khalaf does not perform the ghunnah of idghām for the letters wāw and yāʾ with nūn. This was used in today’s recitation, especially in Sūrah ʿAbasa.

Some farsh from today’s recitation:

The Uṣūl

This article discusses how the Qurrāʾ stop at word-endings.

The Qurrāʾ use three methods to do so. While the most common is iskān or sukūn, Qurrāʾ also prefer beautifying their stoppages with the rawm and ishmām methods.

What is rawm?

This is to add a third of a ḥarakah upon stopping at a given word in a manner that most of the ḥarakah disappears, leaving behind a faint sound that can be heard by those who are seated close to the reciter and are listening to the recitation intently. For instance, in the word nastaʿīn in Sūrah al-Ḥamd, a reciter performing the rawm shall pronounce the ḍammah (paysh) of the nūn of nastaʿīn at one-third of its length thus: nastaʿīn-u. The rawm can be pronounced for words ending with zayr and paysh.

What is ishmām?

This is to position the lips in the formation of the letter wāw’s pronunciation (O) without pronouncing anything. In the case of nastaʿīn, the reciter shall recite the word and position his lips in the said position for a brief moment. The ishmām can only be seen and not heard and can be performed only on words ending with paysh.

Who performs the rawm and the ishmām?

All the kūfan Reciters and Ibn ʿĀmir perform the rawm and ishmām.

Ḥafṣ mandates the performing of rawm or ishmām in the word “taʾmannā”.