Important Points Regarding the Arabic Shaddah Sign
in the Qur’aan[1]
The sign of shaddah
(ّ) on a letter means that letter is to be doubled. The first
letter has a sukoon on it and the second will have a vowel:
ربٌّ
– ر+ بْ + بٌ
إيّاكَ
– إ يْ + يَ + ا + كَ
If the shaddah is
not read it means you have missed out one letter from the Qur’aan. This is a
major mistake. If a person does this in Suratul Faatihah during salaah the salaah
is invalid and needs to be repeated. Suratul Fatihah is a pillar of the salaah.
It was narrated from Abu Sa’ib that he heard Abu Hurairah say:
The Messenger of
Allah ﷺ said:
‘Whoever performs a
prayer in which he does not recite Ummul Qur’an (the Mother of the Qur’an,
i.e., Al- Fatihah), it is deficient; not complete.’[2]
So if it is missed
out completely or it is not read correctly then it invalidates the salaah. Suratul
Faatihah has 11 letters with shaddah on them (not including the three doubled
letters in the basmalah[3]). The
Hanbali Madhab do not count the basmalah as part of Suratul Faatihah. The
Shaafi’ee Madhab do count the basmalah as part of Suratul Faatihah so they say
there are 14 shaddaat in Suratul Faatihah.
The following are
quotes from the scholars of the past regarding the shaddah[4]:
1.
Imaam Shaafi’ee[5]:
“If
someone leaves one letter from Ummul Qur’aan (i.e. Suratul Faatihah) out of
forgetfulness, it (Suratul Faatihah) is not counted for that rak’ah. This is
because whoever leaves a letter is not considered as someone who has read the
Ummul Qur’aan in a complete way.”
2.
Imaam al Maawardee[6]:
“There
are 14 shaddaat in Suratul Faatihah. If someone leaves one shaddah it is not
allowed because the letters with shaddah on takes the place of two letters. So
if someone leaves a shaddah they have left a letter…”
3.
Imaam Nawawee[7]
“Suratul
Faatihah is to be read in every rak’ah not just one. The basmalah is counted as
an aayah from Suratul Faatihah and so are the letters with shaddah on them. If
someone changed the letter ض to a ظ it is not correct according to the
strongest opinion.”
“It
is not correct that the one leading the salaah is a person who made tayammum and
leads a resident person (not travelling) nor an illiterate person leading a
literate person. Someone who makes mistakes in the letters or does not
pronounce the shaddah in Suratul Faatihah or someone who merges letters where
there is no merging or who reads a letter as a different letter. However, if
there is no-one better than these types of people who makes these mistakes or
they make the same mistakes as the Imaam, then the salaah is correct.”
4.
Imaam Hajar al Haytamee[8]
“If
a person misses out a shaddah, his reading is invalid. Even more so a person
could become a disbeliever by missing out the shaddah on the word ‘iyyaaka’ if
he knows and intends to miss it out. This is because if it is left out the
meaning changes to ‘We worship the rays of the sun’ instead of ‘You alone we
worship’. If a person puts a shaddah on a letter which does not have a shaddah on
it, it is bad, however, it does not invalidate the salaah.”
5.
Ibraaheem bin Muflih[9]
“It
is a must to read (Suratul Faatihah) in order; to read the shaddaat; without
making mistakes which affect the meaning such as, kasra instead of fathah on
the word:
إياكَ – إباكِ
Dhammah
instead of fathah on the word:
أنعمتَ – أنعمتُ
Fathah
on the hamzatul wasl instead of kasra.
اِهدنا – اَهدنا
So
if someone leaves the order of the aayaat, or misses out a shaddah, or makes a
long pause for dhikr or otherwise during the Faatihah then he has to repeat the
salaah.”
Places where
Shaddaat occur:
1.
On the letter after laam shamsiyyah. Alif and laam before a noun means ‘the’.
14 letters are Qamariyyah (do not merge with the ‘al’) and 14 letters are
shamsiyyah (do merge with the ‘al’). The Shamsiyyah letters will therefore
always carry a shaddah to show they have been merged. For e.g. الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
2.
Within words. For e.g إِيَّاكَ يُقَدِّرُ
3.
Tajweed rule on the first letter of a word. A shaddah cannot begin a
word due to the Arabic rule that a word cannot begin with a sukoon. The shaddah
is made up of a sukoon then a vowel. However, you will see in the Qur’aan today
words that have a shaddah on the first letter. This is not an original shaddah
but one due to a tajweed rule which means you merge the last letter of the
previous word with the first letter of the second word. If you have paused
before the word and start on that word then there is no shaddah. For example: Suratun
Nisaa aayaat 164 and 165:
وَرُسُلًا
لَّمْ
تَكْلِيمًا
رُّسُلًا مُّبَشِّرِينَ
A shaddah can
change the meaning of a word completely. For e.g. darasa درس
means
to learn vs. darrasa درَّس means to teach. Compare the the form I and form II meanings of Arabic verbs
to see the vast difference in meaning one little shaddah can make. Another example are the words: إلاّ 'except' and إلى meaning 'to'. If the shaddah is not pronounced correctly then it changes the meaning.
For more details
and information see the PowerPoint and PDF entitled “Suratul Faatihah: Correct
Recitation vs. Major Mistakes made in Recitation” from my website:
[1] Written
by Umm ‘Abdir Rahmaan Tara Hashim 1437/2016
[2] Sunan Ibn Majah Book 5, Hadith 887
[3] Basmalah
= bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
[4] Extracted
and Translated from: http://vb.tafsir.net/tafsir7145/
[5] ‘Al
Umm’ by Shaafi’ee vol. 1 p107
[6] ‘Al
Haawee al Kabeer’ vol. 2 p235
[7] ‘Minhaaj
at Taalibeen’ p10 and p17
[8] ‘Al
Manhaj al Qaweem’ vol.1 p178
[9] ‘Al
Mabda’’ vol. 1 p437
