Tajweed Curriculum · English Companion Edition

Learning to recite the Qur'an the way it was preserved.

This guide adapts the tajweed curriculum used by hifz examiners into a version built for English-speaking students — especially those who didn't grow up reading Arabic. Every rule is shown in Arabic, in simplified transliteration, and in plain English, side by side. This is a free preview: the opening conventions and the first full rule section, exactly as they appear in the complete companion.

Start here

Four small conventions repeat on every page. Learn them once here and the rest of the guide will read itself.

1 · Arabic comes first, always

Every rule, letter, and example is shown in Arabic script first. The transliteration next to it is a memory aid for between lessons — a way to recognise a word again, not a substitute for learning the letters themselves.

2 · CAPITAL letters mean "heavy"

Seven letters in Arabic are always pronounced with extra weight and depth — the mouth fills up with the sound. You'll meet them properly in Tafkheem & Tarqeeq, but to get you used to hearing the difference early, this guide capitalises them in every transliteration, everywhere:

So you'll read Saaliheen with a thick, full "s," next to the ordinary word sameeʻ with a thin, light one — same English letter, very different mouth shape. That contrast is the entire point of tafkheem and tarqeeq, and you'll be absorbing it passively from page one.

3 · Two letters that share an English letter — on purpose

Arabic has more throat and "s/d/t/z"-type sounds than English has letters for them. Rather than pile on academic dots and dashes, this guide keeps the spelling simple and always shows you the Arabic alongside it, so there's never any real ambiguity:

4 · Doubled vowels mean "hold it"

Short vowels are a single letter: a, i, u. Long vowels (a madd — see Madd) are doubled to remind you to stretch them: aa, ee, oo. So Rabb is short and snappy; Raaziq opens up on that first syllable.

The visual language of this guide

Letters are grouped by what happens to the sound when a Noon Saakinah or Meem Saakinah meets them. The same four shapes recur in every rule section:

Outline = clarity (Izhaar) · Gold fill = merges with a hum (Idghaam with ghunnah) · Solid teal = merges completely, no hum (Idghaam without ghunnah) · Dashed = partly concealed (Ikhfaa) · Rubric red = changes into a different letter (Iqlaab).

The two openings · 1 of 2

"I take refuge in Allah from Satan, the outcast."

Four ways to join it with the Basmalah and the first surah

Once you add the Basmalah and the opening of a surah into the mix, you have three "joints" you can either cut or connect: after the refuge-seeking, after the Basmalah. Reciters use four combinations:

The two openings · 2 of 2

"In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate."

Three ways to read it between two surahs

The exception: between Al-Anfaal and At-Tawbah

At-Tawbah is the one surah with no Basmalah at all, which makes the join from Al-Anfaal into it special. There are three accepted ways — none of them use a Basmalah:

1. Waqf — stop and take a breath.
2. Sakt — a brief pause with no breath.
3. Wasl — join the end of Al-Anfaal straight into the start of At-Tawbah in one breath.

And if you're starting your recitation fresh at the beginning of At-Tawbah itself, you simply choose whether to join the refuge-seeking onto it or pause first — both are fine, since no Basmalah is involved either way.

The four core rules · 1 of 3

A Noon Saakinah (ن) is a plain, vowel-less noon, written and pronounced exactly as it looks. Tanween is the extra "n" sound at the end of an indefinite noun — heard when you keep reading, dropped when you stop, and shown by doubling the vowel mark: ـً ـٍ ـٌ.

Whenever either one is followed by any of the 28 Arabic letters, exactly one of four things happens to the sound. Learn the letter groups below and you'll know instantly which rule applies, every time.