The Article of “Al”
Welcome to the Galaxy of
“The” of Arabic
“Al” in Arabic Language is equivalent to “the” in English.
This Article of “Al” is in all the Ayaat of the Quran and sometimes it is used many times in one Ayat too.
It is really interesting to take a deeper look at this most commonly used expression.
So have you been to the Galaxy of “ال”?
Let us see a few beautiful examples of “Al” to understand how it goes along with different letters of Arabic
So we have so many “Al” at the start of this beautiful Surah “Surah e Rahman”.
If we look a bit closely, we can differentiate between:
1) There is “Al” in which we read “Hamza tul Wasl”
We know that:
We read Hamza tul Wasl when it comes in the start, as in the first “Al” here in “Ar-Rahman” اَلرَّحْمٰن and as-shams اَلشَّمْسُ.
We don’t read Hamza tul Wasl when it comes in between the other words, as the rest of the “Al” here.
We have already studied this rule in Module 1 under the topic of “Alif vs Hamza” ( The Alif Garden).
You can revise it on this link :
https://www.thelastingnoor.com/tajweed-basics/the-alif-garden-story-of-alif-and-hamza?rq=alif%20
If you look more carefully, we are reading some of the “laam at tareef” and some “laam at tareef” we are not reading. How to decide on this matter?
Let us see the rule of Laam and for it, you have to meet,
the sun and the moon :)
اگر آپ غور سے دیکھیں تو ہم کچھ "لام التعريف" پڑھ رہے ہیں اور کچھ "لام التعريف" نہیں پڑھ رہے ہیں۔ اس معاملے کا فیصلہ کیسے کریں؟
آئیے لام کے اصول کو دیکھتے ہیں اور اس کے لیے آپ کو ملنا ہوگا
(:سورج اور چاند سے
We can see that ;
The Laam of As-Shams we are not reading.
The Laam of Al-Qamar we are reading.
Based on this difference, the Arabic Alphabets are divided into;
The sun letters اَلْحُرُوْفُ الشَّمْسيه (like in the “as-Shams”, we don’t read the laam of Al)
The moon letters اَلْحُرُوْفُ الْقَمَريه (like in the “al-Qamar”, we read the laam of Al)
Now Let’s see the example again and apply this rule to it.
ہم دیکھ سکتے ہیں کہ
اَلشَّمْس کےلام کو ہم نہیں پڑھ رہے ہیں۔
اَلْقَمَرکےلام كو ہم پڑھ رہے ہیں۔
اس فرق کی بنیاد پر عربی حروف تہجی کو تقسیم کیا گیا ہے۔
"سورج کے حروف" اَلْحُرُوفُ الشَّمْسيه
جیسا کہ "الشمس" میں، ہم "ال" کا لام نہیں پڑھتے ہیں
"چاند کے حروف" اَلْحُرُوْفُ الْقَمَريه -جیسے "القمر" میں، ہم "ال" کا لام پڑھتے ہیں
اب ایک بار پھر مثال دیکھتے ہیں اور اس اصول کو اس پر لاگو کرتے ہیں۔
Although we can see this difference while reading and understand how to read with the help of Harakat, it is better to know these 2 different letters.
For remembering them we will just memorize “The Moon Letters”, knowing that all letters other than these belong to the sun side.
Enjoy the Galaxy of “Al” while reading them, it is as beautiful and vast as the galaxies of our universe.
