ذ (dhāl) is letter 9 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between د dāl and ر rāʾ. Its sound is th, as in this. It never joins to the letter after it, so it has two shapes: ذ ذ. It is a sun letter, and its abjad value is 700.
Hear its name, ذال (dhāl):
Why dhāl has two shapes, not four
Dhāl is one of the six letters that never join to the letter after them: ا د ذ ر ز و. It joins only from the right, so its initial form is its isolated shape, ذ, and its medial form is its final shape, ذ. A word breaks into a new piece after it: in ذهب (dhahab, gold), the letter after dhāl starts again.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ذ | U+FEAB | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ذ | U+FEAB (same as isolated) | at the start of a word: the isolated shape, since nothing joins it on the left |
| Medial | ذ | U+FEAC (same as final) | inside a word: the final shape, and the next letter starts a new piece |
| Final | ذ | U+FEAC | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores both shapes as one character, U+0630 (ARABIC LETTER THAL); U+FEAB and U+FEAC are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Dhāl is number 18 of the 28 letters by frequency, 1.8% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is final in 62% and alone in 38% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce dhāl
The sound of dhāl is th, as in this, written dh in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. English has this sound too and spells it th, the same two letters it uses for the other th sound; Arabic gives each its own letter.
Spoken dialects do not all say dhāl the same way. Learn the Standard sound first, because every speaker recognises it; this is what you will hear instead.
| Modern Standard | Egyptian (Cairo) | Levantine (cities) | Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, Najd) | Libyan (Tripoli) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dh as in this: كذّاب kadhdhāb, liar | d, or z in learned words: kaddāb | d or z: kaddāb, kazzāb | dh, kept | d: دهب dahab, gold |
Arabic words with dhāl
These 5 everyday words show dhāl in real writing: it is final in هذا, لذيذ and كذاب; alone in ذهب and ذل. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our Arabic pronunciation guide, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Dhāl here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ذهب | dhahab | gold | alone | |
| هذا | hādhā | this | final | |
| لذيذ | ladhīdh | delicious | final | |
| كذاب | kadhdhāb | liar | final | |
| ذل | dhalla | he was humbled | alone |
Dhāl with al-, and its number
Dhāl is a sun letter, so the l of al- (the) goes silent before it: الذهب is said adh-dhahab, the gold (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 700 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like dhāl
Dhāl and د dāl share the same hook, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ذ dhāl: one dot above
- د dāl: no dot
Dhāl has a heavy partner, ẓāʾ ظ, the same th said with the back of the tongue pulled up and back. Our pronunciation guide trains the two with ذَلَّ dhalla (he was humbled) against ظَلَّ ẓalla (he remained).
Practise writing dhāl
Trace it on the free dhāl tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 65 KB), which prints its two shapes beside ذهب (dhahab), هذا (hādhā) and لذيذ (ladhīdh); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter dhāl?
The sound of dhāl (ذ) is th, as in this, written dh in transliteration.
Does dhāl join to the next letter?
No. Dhāl is one of six letters, ا د ذ ر ز و, that join only to the letter before them. It has two shapes: ذ when nothing joins it, and ذ after a joining letter, and the letter after it always starts a new piece of the word.
Is dhāl a sun letter or a moon letter?
A sun letter. Before dhāl the l of al- goes silent and the letter doubles, so الذهب is said adh-dhahab (the gold).
Which Arabic letters look like dhāl?
ذ dhāl has one dot above and د dāl has no dot. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.