Learn Quran with Tajweed Rules: The Meem Sakinah

Asmaa Akl

13 Jan 2020

In order to learn Quran with tajweed you have to encounter the Meem Sakinah and apply its three different tajweed rules for pronunciation: Idgham with Ghunnah, Oral Ikhfaa also known as Ikhfaa Shafawi إخفاء شفوي and Oral Izhar, also known as Izhar shafawi إظهار شفوي.

Note: Please refer to our articles ‘Learn to read Quran with Tajweed Rules: The Ghunnah and Idgham’ and ‘Learn to read Quran with Tajweed Rules: Noon Sakinah and Tanween’ for some background information about Idgham, Ghunnah, Ikhfaa, and Izhar. Additionally, it is a prerequisite to know how to read Arabic letters and Arabic diacritics to understand the rest of the article so if you don’t please visit our articles ‘Learn Arabic Letters’ and ‘Learn Arabic diacritics’.

Tajweed Rule: The Small Idgham

The small Idgham is only concerned with the letter Meem م. A small Idgham with Ghunnah takes effect when a non-vowelled Meem م (a Meem with a Sukoon) at the end of a word is followed by a vowelled Meem that has Tashkil on it. The resulting sound is an extension of the Meem sound for two beats and the sound of the Ghunnah coming out of the nose.

This same pronunciation applies for every Meem Mushaddadah (carrying a Shaddah above it) even if it comes in the middle of a word.

Example:

Tajweed Rule: The Oral Ikhfaa (الإخفاء الشفوي)

The Oral Ikhfaa takes effect when the non-vowelled Meem م at the end of a word is followed by a Baa ب at the beginning of the following word. As shown in the applied definition in the below image, the application of this will be a fading out of the Meem sound into the sound of the letter Baa.

Examples:

Tajweed Rule: The Oral Izhar (الإظهار الشفوي)

The Oral Izhar takes effect when the non-vowelled Meem م at the end of a word is followed by any letter excluding the Baa ب and another Meem. There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, if you exclude the Meem م and the Baa ب, you get 26 letters to which this tajweed rule applies. When Oral Izhar is applied the sound of the Meem is articulated clearly without Idgham or Ikhfaa.

Examples

This marks the end of the tajweed rules concerning the Meem Sakinah. We hope our article contributed in explaining tajweed rules further. If you want a more extensive explanation of tajweed rules, be sure to check out our ‘learn theoretical tajweed’ classes at Nour Academy also if you are interested in applying these rules in your daily recitation of Quran please apply to our ‘Learn Quran: memorization and recitation’ classes. Stay tuned for more lessons to come.