Question

Assalaamu alaikum,

There is something that has been bothering me for a very long time and it is confusing me: What is the length of a 'harakah'?
I have read some books and asked this to some brothers (some of them qaris with isnaad) and I have had the following three very different responses:

1) It is the length of a vowel count (i.e. one fat-hah, dhammah or kasrah) - I think this is what your site says, also al-waafy sharh of Shaatibiyyah works in "harakaat", I assume it literally means vowels.

2) It is the length of one alif (an Nashr works in alifaat, see baabul madd wal qasr)

3) It is none of the above, but the length of time it takes you to flex or extend your finger. (Some english books define 1 'harakah' as this)

Please tell me what is going on.
Having listened carefully to the Hafs shaatibiyyah CD sets of the Sheikhs Mahmud al-Husary, Abdul Baset AbdusSamad, Mohammad al-Minshawi and others it seems to me that number 2 above is what the Reciters do in practice. (i.e. wa laddaaaaaaleen a the end of fatihah is an extension of six of the reciters normal alifs). 

Answer

The length of a harakah is the timing of one vowel, and the length of an alif is two vowel counts.  Each vowel should be equal in count to the other.  The mudood (lengthenings) are referred to in the older books as a number of alifs, and they are divided into two groups in evaluation, but in the end they are all the same amount of time for each particular medd. All scholars though agree, that one harakah is one vowel count. 

The Nashr refers to those that used a system of counting a medd in a number of alifaat, the first alif being two vowel counts, and every alif after that one vowel count.  So when the Nashr refers to the tawasit (four counts) being three alifaat, it means the first alif is two counts, and the other two are each one harakah (one vowel count) adding up to a total of four vowel counts. 

Other evaluators assigned the medd counts with each alif given two vowel counts, so they would refer to the tawasit (four counts) as equally two alif. 

The most important thing to note is that there is no difference in the actual timing of the medd, just a difference in linguistics. Imam Al-Jazaree, may Allah be merciful to him, summed up one of the most important parts of tajweed in a short line in his poem about the basic rules of tajweed, when he said, , meaning: an utterance in its parallel should be equal to it.  Applying this to the harakah this means, every vowel count should equal the other, every alif should equal two vowel counts and should be equal to other alifaat, and every four vowel count medd should equal the other four vowel count mudood.   

The finger timing is not accurate and cannot be used as a source for the number of harakat.  One may be reading at a quick pace, yet move their finger slowly, and then there will be no balance in the number of harakaat whether it is one, four, five, or six.  When however, we base the medd counts on the timing of vowels, we have a balance in the timings of vowels and mudood.  A reciter reading slowly will have an appropriate longer medd length than another reciting quickly, depending on the timing of each vowel count and based on that, the mudood.  The four vowel count medd will still be four vowel counts, but will take longer when the recitation is slow. 

Timings are perfected by reading to a sheikh  with an ijaazah and being corrected by them.