Question

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. 

Thank you very much for your help in reading the Holy Qur'an, the words of Allah, glory be to Him. I would like to have clarification regarding the reading of hamza bearing fat'ha tanwiin when we stop on that hamza. I have heard two different specialists lengthening the fat'ha, as "  "  (Sura Al-Baqara, Verse 22). I can understand why the vowel is lengthened in similar endings with fat'ha tanwiin involving other letters, as in "  " or " ," because in those cases there is alif after the tanwin. But there is no alif after the hamza. So why does the lengthening still take place with hamza? Should it be understood that there is a hidden alif after the hamza or is it just a special case, because hamza itself is, in many, cases interchanged with alif? Your input will be highly appreciated. Thank you again for using your valuable time in helping. Wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

 Answer

Wa alaaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.  You are most welcome.  May Allah make us all “ahl al-Qur’an”. 

All the examples you sited in your question have what is called a medd ‘iwadh ( ) when stopping.  The definition of this lengthening is: It is substituting a lengthened alif for the tanween with a fath, when stopping on it.  The lengthening is two counts, which means, the length of two vowels, the same as the counts of the natural medd.  This medd takes place whether there is an alif written after the letter with the tanween or not.  When continuing reading and not stopping on the word that has the tanween with a fath, this lengthening disappears and the  saakinah rules are applied to the tanween.

 

The alif then, is only used when stopping, and not written in all the words that have this rule applied.  As you noticed, the alif is not written specifically when there is a hamzah for the last letter of the word and an alif immediately preceding it.  The Arabs dislike to have two of the same letter near each other in writing, and if the alif used only for stopping were written in a word like    or , or  there would be two alifs very close to each other.   If the alif used only for stopping were written in, there would be confusion as to the tajweed rule applied, since then there would be a hamzah preceding a written alif which is a medd badl. 

The hamzah is not interchanged with an alif in pronunciation at all in Arabic, but there are some who call the hamzah an alif because it often uses an alif to sit on, but the correct way to name it is a hamzah.  The alif is the lengthened alif that has no vowel on it and is preceded by a fat-h. 

In conclusion, all words in the question that end with a tanween fat-h are lengthened two vowel counts when stopping, whether an alif is written in on the end of the word, or not. 

Something to note is that words that end with a female  and have a tanween fat-h are not lengthened when stopping.  The word is stopped on instead with a  saakinah (as in:  ).

Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.