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Question

Assalamu alaikum

We know that when pronouncing the "dhommah" the lips have a forward movement and when pronouncing a letter with "sukoon" the mouth is in a "neutral" position.  How would we pronounce the word "Quloobuhum" where 4 "dhommas" follow each other; does ones mouth return to a "neutral" state before pronouncing the next letter with "dhammah" or does ones mouth stay in a "dhommah" position until all dhommas have been completed. I hope you understand my question.  Shukran.

 

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Your question is a good one and well understood.  When there is a saakin letter after a dhammah, or any other vowel, our mouth should return to a neutral position, but when there are several dhammaat in a row, such as in the word , our mouth stays in the dhammah position until we read the saakinah, for which then we return to a neutral mouth position.  If we tried to return to a neutral position in between each dhammah, we would not be able to complete the dhammah and the sound would not be a pure dhammah.  Al-hamdu lillah, it is much easier to keep the mouth in a dhammah for all the consecutive dhammaat, and you will always find the correct way of doings things to be the easiest in tajweed, even though it may take us a while to find the correct way.   
Afwan.