THE
IMPORTANCE OF TAJWID
An Arabic adage
proclaims: “The speech of the kings is the king of all
speech.”
So, can the excellency of the speech of the kings
of all kings – Allah Ta’ala – even be equated with
man-made speech.
One of the many miracles of the noble Qur’aan is
that regardless of the number of times it is recited,
one never gets tired nor bored with its recitation.
Allah Ta’ala says in the noble Qur’aan, ‘Indeed the
believers are those who tremble with fear when Allah is
remembered and when the verses of the Qur’aan are
recited before them, it increases their belief and upon
Allah they have complete trust.” (8:2)
One of the salient points mentioned in this verse
is that when a believer recites the noble Qur’aan in the
correct manner, it increases his faith and belief in
Allah. Reciting the noble Qur’aan in the correct manner
means to recite it with Tajwid.
What is Tajwid
Allah Ta’ala says in the noble Qur’aan, ‘And
recite the Qur’aan with Tarteel.’ (73:4)
When asked about the meaning of Tarteel, Hadhrat
Ali (Radhiallaahu
Anhu) replied, ‘It means that the Qur’aan should be
recited with Tajwid and with due observance to the rules
of Waqf (pausing or stopping at the end of the
verse).’
Tajwid means to recite every letter correctly,
i.e. from its proper origin of pronunciation coupled
with its stipulated attributes.
According to Imaam Jawzi (Rahmatullaahi
Alayhi), the verse, ‘Verily my people have renounced
the Qur’aan’ has two interpretations. Firstly, it could
mean that they had renounced the Qur’aan by not
believing in it and practicing upon it. And secondly, it
could mean that they used to recite the Qur’aan in such
a disgusting manner that it sounded like senseless and
meaningless jabbering. Reading the Qur’aan without
Tajwid could also be included in the second
interpretation.
Tajwid from the Hadith
Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam) has said, ‘Indeed Allah desires that the
Qur’aan be recited in the manner it was revealed.’ This
Hadith clarified by the Aayat and, ‘We revealed the
Qur’aan with Tartil.’ (2:32)
The definition of Tartil has been explained
above. Since the Qur’aan emphatically commands us to
recite the Qur’aan with Tajwid, it is Fardh to recite
the Qur’aan with Tajwid.
Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam) has said, ‘The Qur’aan will either testify
in your favour or against you.’ Hence, if we fail to
observe the requirements of the noble Qur’aan during our
recitation, the Qur’aan will testify against us. If we
are unacquainted with these prerequisites, we are
compelled to acquire the laws of Tajwid.
Due to the vastness of the Arabic language, any
small mistake in pronunciation of a letter or word may
change the meaning of that word. For example, the word
‘Qalb’ (with q) means heart, if read ‘Kalb’ (with k), it
will mean a dog’. So just as how in any other language
we learn pronunciation of letters and words, for
example, in English we learn that ‘ph’ stands for ‘f’
(as in phone) and not pone. Similarly, in the Arabic
language, we also have to learn pronunciation of letters
and words, which we term as ‘Tajwid’. Tajwid is not like
all other subjects which we are able to separate from
the Qur’aan but instead Tajwid and Qur’aan work hand in
hand. If there is no Tajwid with Qur’aan, there is no
Qur’aan. The question may arise that, how can such a
statement be made that if a person reads Qur’aan without
Tajwid, he is not read Qur’aan? Yes, such a statement is
100% correct.
Our beloved Rasul (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam) states in one Hadith, ‘There are a lot of
readers that read the Qur’aan but the Qur’aan curses
them instead of making Du’aa for them.’ We get some
people nowadays who spend hours and hours reciting the
Qur’aan thinking that they are getting and attaining
great rewards. But because there pronunciation of
letters is incorrect, a very big problem arise. It
sounds very small when we say, ‘I am only pronouncing a
letter incorrectly..’ But did this thought ever cross
our minds that when a letter changes in a word, the word
changes and if a word changes in a sentence then the
whole sentence changes and eventually the meaning also
changes. So from this, we understand the Hadith of our
Rasul (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam), that some people read so much of the
Qur’aan but because they do not know the correct
pronunciation of the letters, they change the letters
which then changes the words which eventually leads to
the changing of the sentence and meaning of the Qur’aan.
So, the Qur’aan in turn, instead of making Du’aa for
such people it curses them.
We should also remember that from the time and
generation of Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam) till now, no one has ever denied this fact
that Tajwid is compulsory. It is only now in our
generation that people have lost respect and forgotten
the status of Tajwid. Today, even logic will show us the
importance of Tajwid. If we write a letter to our
beloved and give it to someone to give it to him or her,
but this Mr Someone takes the letter and changes a few
words which eventually changes the meaning of your
letter, how would we feel?
Wouldn’t we get angry and take such a person to
task , so in the same way, the Qur’aan is the word of
Allah. If we change the word of Allah then Allah Ta’ala
will definitely get angry with us and take us to task
just as how we would do if someone changes our words in
our letters.
So from all this, we can see that the Qur’aan is
not Qur’aan until and unless it is read with Tajwid.
Just as how if someone changes our letter addressed to
our beloved, we would say that this is not our letter.
We can also see from all this, the importance of reading
the Qur’aan with Tajwid.
May Allah give me, you and all the ability to
read the Qur’aan correctly so that we may earn the mercy
of Allah Ta’ala and not the anger of Allah.
Qari
Ismail Abdul-Aziz Head and Senior Lecturer:
Department of Qiraat An Expert in the different
dialects of recitation (Seven and Ten)
Last modified: April 21, 2002
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