Noon Sakinah and Tanween: The Four Rules Explained with Examples

By Rahman School

A noon with no vowel on it, called noon sakinah, and the “n” sound at the end of a tanween follow exactly the same rules. What happens to that “n” depends entirely on the very next letter, and there are only four possibilities: say it clearly (Izhar), turn it into a meem (Iqlab), merge it into the next letter (Idgham), or hide it with a hum (Ikhfa). Every letter of the alphabet belongs to one of the four, so once you know the letter groups you never have to guess.

This guide follows the order of the Rahman Quranic Reading Method, a new book by Rahman School that is not yet used in Rahman School’s current classes. It covers Unit 13 of the book, and every Quranic example below is one the book itself prints, with its surah and verse.

At a glance

These four names are the standard Tajweed terms. You will also see them spelt in other ways, such as ikhfaa (the book’s own spelling) or idghaam, and Rahman School’s Quran and Arabic glossary gives a one-line definition of each.

In this guide

1. One sound, two spellings
2. Izhar: say it clearly
3. Iqlab: turn it into a meem
4. Idgham: merge it into the next letter
5. Ikhfa: hide it and hum
6. Name the rule before you read
7. Short practice exercises
8. One verse, two rules
9. The same idea for meem sakinah
10. Common mistakes
11. Frequently asked questions

One sound, two spellings

The unit begins by joining two things the learner already knows. A noon carrying a sukoon, نْ, is a noon with no vowel after it. A tanween is a vowel mark written twice at the end of a word, as in بً, and it adds an “n” sound that is never written as a letter. Say both aloud and the ending is the same “n”. That is why Arabic treats them as one subject, and why everything in this guide applies to both.

The doubled marks have their own names: two fathahs are called fathatain, two kasrahs kasratain, and two dammahs dammatain. If the single marks are still new, start with the guide to fathah, kasrah and dammah, and see Unit 8 of the pillar guide for how tanween itself is read.

What you do with the “n” depends on the letter that comes straight after it. The book gives four short instructions for the four rules: say it clearly, turn it into a meem, merge it away, hide it and hum. It also points out a small sum worth showing any learner: six letters plus one plus six plus fifteen makes twenty-eight, the whole alphabet. The four rules cover every letter, so there is nothing left over.

Izhar: say it clearly

Izhar means making clear. Before six letters, you do nothing special at all: the noon is said exactly as it always is, with no humming, no merging and no change. All six are made in the throat, which is why the full name of the rule means “throat izhar”. The throat is too far back in the mouth for the noon to blend into them.

The six throat letters are: ء ه ع ح غ خ

In the third example the letter after the tanween is a hamzah written sitting on an alif. It is still the hamzah, one of the six throat letters, so the rule is Izhar.

Pronunciation tip. Put a finger on your throat and say the six letters: feeling where they are made explains the rule better than a list. Then watch for over-correction. A learner who has just been told “say it clearly” sometimes starts stressing the noon. Clear does not mean loud. The noon should sound exactly as it would anywhere else.

Iqlab: turn it into a meem

Iqlab means turning over, and it applies before exactly one letter: ب. When a noon sakinah or a tanween is followed by ba, the “n” is not said at all. It turns into an “m”, held with a hum.

The reason is in the mouth. Try saying an “n” and then a “b” quickly. Your lips have to close for the “b”, and the easiest sound to make while they close is an “m”. The language simply follows the mouth.

Iqlab is also one of the few rules the Mushaf shows you directly. A small meem is often printed above the noon as the instruction to make this change. Look for the small meem in each of these examples from the book:

Here is the second example in its complete verse (Quran 91:12), with the small meem printed above the noon:

إِذِ ٱنۢبَعَثَ أَشْقَىٰهَا

Recitation: Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary — Muallim (teaching recitation)

Pronunciation tip. Close the lips for the meem and let the sound come out through the nose as a hum before the “b”. That nasal hum is called ghunnah, and the book first teaches it in Unit 10: pinch your nose while humming and the sound stops, because it was coming through the nose all along.

Idgham: merge it into the next letter

Idgham means merging. Before six letters the noon is not pronounced at all. It merges into the letter that follows, and that letter is doubled instead. This happens between two words: the noon ends one word and the merging letter begins the next.

The six letters fall into three pairs, and each pair behaves slightly differently. A tanween before these letters follows exactly the same pattern as a noon sakinah; the examples below use a noon sakinah so that the merge is easy to see.

“Complete” means the noon vanishes entirely into the next letter, and nothing of it is left. “Incomplete” means most of it merges but a trace of the hum remains: the noon is gone as a letter, yet you can still hear that something was there.

Complete, with a hum

The noon merges and the hum stays. The book’s instruction is to hold the hum for about two beats. Here the noon of the first word disappears into the doubled noon that begins the second:

The same example in its complete verse (Quran 78:30):

فَذُوقُوا۟ فَلَن نَّزِيدَكُمْ إِلَّا عَذَابًا

Recitation: Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary — Muallim (teaching recitation)

Complete, without a hum

Only two letters take the hum away completely: ل and ر. These are the ones to watch, because once a learner has met humming the natural temptation is to hum on everything. If you remember only one thing from this section, make it this pair.

The first example in its complete verse (Quran 96:7), where the noon vanishes into the ra with no hum:

أَن رَّءَاهُ ٱسْتَغْنَىٰٓ

Recitation: Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary — Muallim (teaching recitation)

Incomplete, with a hum

Before ي and و, most of the noon merges but a trace of the hum stays.

Pronunciation tip. The book suggests reading each set of examples twice: once listening only for the hum, and once listening only for whether the noon has truly disappeared. Separating the two makes both easier to hear.

Why “between two words” matters

The book stresses that “between two words” is not a detail: it is the condition. When a noon sakinah is followed by ya or waw inside the same word, there is no merging, and the noon is said clearly instead. The reference the book follows states that this happens in only four words in the whole Quran. Because there are so few, they are best learned by sight, with a teacher pointing out each one in the Mushaf.

Ikhfa: hide it and hum

Six letters take Izhar, one takes Iqlab and six take Idgham. That is thirteen, and the other fifteen all take Ikhfa. Ikhfa means hiding. The noon is neither said clearly nor merged away; it sits somewhere in between. The tongue does not quite touch, and the sound goes out through the nose as a hum while the mouth gets ready for the next letter.

The fifteen letters are: ت ث ج د ذ ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ف ق ك

The hum takes the colour of the letter that follows. Before a heavy letter it is full and round; before a light letter it is thin. You are not doing anything different: your mouth is simply already shaping the letter that is coming. Five of the fifteen are heavy letters from Unit 1 of the book, ص ض ط ظ ق, and the other ten are light.

Pronunciation tip. Ikhfa is the most common of the four rules, and the one learners most often turn into a plain, clear noon. The pinched-nose test from Unit 10 works here too: if the sound carries on unchanged when the nose is pinched, there is no hum, and the learner is saying a plain noon.

Name the rule before you read

The book’s practice page for the whole unit has one instruction: look at the letter after the noon, name the rule, and only then read. The skill being built is looking forward to the next letter before reading the current one, and all four rules depend on that habit. The book recommends keeping this table in view while practising:

At the end of the unit, the book checks six things before a learner moves on: noon and tanween are treated alike; the Izhar letters are known and the noon stays clear; the noon becomes a humming meem before ba; in Idgham the noon disappears and the hum is right for each pair; in Ikhfa the noon is hidden with a hum, not said plainly; and the learner names the rule before reading. Only when all six are secure does the book move on to the meem rules.

Short practice exercises

These exercises use the book’s own practice items. Name the rule first, then read the item aloud, ideally to a teacher, and check the answers at the end.

Exercise 1: which rule does this letter call for? Each letter below comes straight after a noon sakinah or a tanween. Name the rule.

Exercise 2: name the rule, then read. Look at the noon or tanween and the letter after it, name the rule, then read the phrase.

Exercise 3: the sum. Six plus one plus six plus fifteen: what does that add up to, and why does the number matter?

Exercise 4: find it in the Mushaf. Open a Mushaf and find a small meem printed above a noon. What is it telling you to do?

One verse, two rules

In real reading the rules come one after another, often in the same verse. This verse contains two of them.

خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ

Recitation: Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary — Muallim (teaching recitation)

In this verse (Quran 96:2), the second word, ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ, has a noon sakinah followed by س, one of the fifteen Ikhfa letters, so the noon is hidden with a thin hum. Then مِنْ ends in a noon sakinah, and the next word begins with ع, a throat letter, so the noon is said clearly: Izhar. Name both rules before you read the verse, then listen to it recited by a qualified teacher.

The same idea for meem sakinah

The next unit of the book applies the same three ideas, clear, merged and hidden, to a meem with no vowel. That system is smaller: there are three rules instead of four and nothing like Iqlab. Before ب the meem is hidden with a hum, before another م the two merge with a hum, and before every other letter the meem is said clearly. All three rule names end in shafawi, “of the lips”, because that is where a meem is made. The meem sakinah section of the pillar guide gives the overview. The book moves on to these rules only when the four noon rules are secure, because learning the two systems at once confuses both.

Common mistakes

These are the mistakes the book’s teacher notes warn about most often:

1. Humming on everything. ل and ر take the hum away completely. This pair is the one place in Idgham that is not forgiving.
2. Turning Ikhfa into a plain noon. Ikhfa is the commonest rule, and the noon must be hidden with a hum, not said clearly. Use the pinched-nose test.
3. Stressing the noon in Izhar. Clear does not mean loud. The noon sounds as it would anywhere else.
4. Ignoring “between two words”. Idgham needs two words. A learner who ignores the condition will misread the four words where the noon stays clear.
5. Adding a vowel after the tanween “n”. Stop on the “n”. Turning “-an” into “-ana” is the commonest fault with tanween, and it changes the word.
6. Reading before looking ahead. Every rule depends on the letter that comes next. Name the rule first, then read.

A parent who does not speak Arabic can still support practice at home, for example by asking the learner to name the rule before each item, or by reading a set twice, once for the hum and once for the noon. The correct sound of each rule, though, must come from a qualified teacher or an approved recitation.

Frequently asked questions

What are the four rules of noon sakinah?

Izhar (say the noon clearly), Iqlab (turn it into a meem), Idgham (merge it into the next letter) and Ikhfa (hide it and hum). Which one applies depends only on the letter that follows the noon.

Is tanween treated like noon sakinah?

Yes. A tanween ends in the same “n” sound as a noon sakinah, so it follows exactly the same four rules. The book’s end-of-unit check includes treating the two alike.

Which are the Izhar letters?

The six throat letters: ء ه ع ح غ خ. Before them the noon is said clearly, with no hum.

What is the difference between Idgham with and without a hum?

In both, the noon disappears into the next letter. Before ن or م the full hum is kept, and before ي or و a trace of it remains. Before ل or ر there is no hum at all.

Why does the noon turn into a meem before ba?

Because the lips must close for the “b”, and the easiest sound to make while they close is an “m”. The Mushaf often prints a small meem as a reminder.

Does Idgham happen inside one word?

No. Idgham happens between two words. When a noon sakinah is followed by ya or waw inside the same word, the noon is said clearly, and the book notes that this occurs in only four words of the Quran.

Learn with a teacher

The Rahman Quranic Reading Method is a new book and is not yet used in Rahman School’s classes. Rahman School’s current classes are live, one-to-one lessons online with a teacher, and the rules in this guide are taught in the online Tajweed classes. For a wider view of how Tajweed study fits together, see how to learn the Quran with Tajweed.

New students are eligible for two free 30-minute trial lessons, so you can try a lesson with a teacher before deciding.

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