Tajweed Rules: A Color-Coded Chart with Quran Examples

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Tajweed rules are the rules for pronouncing the Quran when it is recited: how a noon or meem with a sukun changes before the next letter, which letters bounce, how long a long vowel is held, and which letters are heavy. The chart below sets out 23 rules for the Hafs recitation, each with a colored Quran example.

Download the tajweed rules chart as a PDF (126 KB, 2 pages). It has the same 23 rules, colors and Quran examples as the chart above, prints on US Letter paper, and prints on A4 with fit to page. There is no sign-up. Each color also has its own kind of underline, so the chart still works on a black-and-white printer.

How to read the chart

Each card gives one rule, the letters that trigger it, what to do with your voice, and a Quran example in which the letters the rule changes are colored and underlined. Below the example it is written in Latin letters the way it is recited, with merged letters and stops written out, and linked to its verse on Quran.com, where you can listen to it and read a translation. Tap a group to show only its rules, or a rule's name to mark its letters. Test yourself hides every color until you tap a rule.

The colors follow the key of the color-coded tajweed mushaf printed by Dar Al-Maarifah, which describes its colors this way: red for letters held longer, green for nasal letters, dark blue for the heavy ra, light blue for the qalqalah bounce, and grey for letters that are written but not pronounced. We darken each color so it can be read on white, and we also draw the heavy lam of Allah and the seven heavy letters in dark blue, which that key does not. Printed mushafs differ, so when you read from your own copy, use the key printed in it. Each category also has its own underline (double, wavy, dotted, solid, struck through or dashed) and a label on the card.

A count, the unit of every length on the chart, is about the time it takes to fold or open a finger quickly: a quarter to a third of a second, as defined in ʿAtiyya Qabil Nasr's tajweed textbook Ghayat al-Murid, cited in the Arabic Wikipedia article on ghunnah. The chart follows the recitation of Hafs from ʿAsim, the text of Quran.com that every example was copied from on 15 October 2026. Other recitations differ: in Warsh by the route of al-Azraq, for example, the connected and separated madd are both held for 6 counts.

Noon sakinah and tanween: four rules

A noon with a sukun (نْ) or a tanween (ـً ـٍ ـٌ, the doubled vowel marks that end a word in an n sound) is read in one of four ways, decided by the letter after it. Every letter of the alphabet falls under exactly one of the four, and the 18th-century teaching poem Tuhfat al-Atfal by Sulayman al-Jamzuri gives each group a memory aid.

Six, six, one and fifteen make 28: the whole alphabet, with hamza counted as a letter. In the chart, أَنْعَمْتَ (anʿamta, 1:7) keeps its noon clear before ʿayn, and مِن شَرِّ (min sharri, 113:2) hides it before shīn.

Idgham happens only between two words. Inside one word the noon stays clear even before ي or و, and the poem names the cases: ٱلدُّنْيَا (ad-dunyā, 87:16) and صِنْوَانٌ (ṣinwānun, 13:4) are read with a full n. Quran.com's tajweed marking leaves both unmarked too.

Meem sakinah: three rules

A meem with a sukun (مْ) has three rules, again set by the next letter. Before ب it is hidden with a nasal hold (ikhfa shafawi, the lip rule: تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ, 105:4). Before another م the two merge into one doubled meem (idgham shafawi: وَءَامَنَهُم مِّنْ خَوْفٍۭ, 106:4). Before every other letter it is said clearly with closed lips (izhar shafawi: أَلَمْ تَرَ, 105:1).

Tuhfat al-Atfal adds one warning to this group: take care not to hide the meem before و (wāw) and ف (fāʾ). The poem gives the reason: wāw is made in the same place as meem, and fāʾ close to it.

Ghunnah: the doubled noon and meem

A noon or a meem with a shadda (نّ مّ) is always read with a ghunnah, a nasal sound from the nose held for 2 counts, as in بِرَبِّ ٱلنَّاسِ (bi-rabbi n-nās, 114:1). The same nasal sound comes in five other rules on the chart, the green ones: idgham with ghunnah, iqlab, ikhfa, ikhfa shafawi and idgham shafawi.

To check that your ghunnah comes from the nose, pinch your nose while you hold it. The Arabic Wikipedia article on ghunnah gives the test: with the nose closed the ghunnah stops.

Qalqalah: the five bouncing letters

Five letters bounce when they carry a sukun: qāf ق, ṭāʾ ط, bāʾ ب, jīm ج and dāl د. Ibn al-Jazari gathers them in the two words قطب جد in his teaching poem al-Muqaddimah al-Jazariyya, and says the bounce is clearer when you stop on the letter.

The chart uses two names for the two strengths in that line. Qalqalah sughra, the small bounce, is a letter with a sukun inside a word or joined to the next one, like the qāf of ٱقْرَأْ (iqraʾ, 96:1). Qalqalah kubra, the big bounce, is a letter you stop on, like the last qāf of بِرَبِّ ٱلْفَلَقِ (al-falaq, 113:1). The Wikipedia articles on qalqalah, in Arabic and in English, split the stop into two degrees: the strongest bounce is a stop on a letter with a shadda, such as وَتَبَّ (wa-tabb, 111:1), the example both give.

Madd: how many counts to hold a long vowel

Madd is the lengthening of a long vowel, written with ا, و or ي. On its own a long vowel lasts 2 counts. A hamza or a sukun after it, and in one case a hamza before it, sets a different length. Tuhfat al-Atfal sorts the kinds as obligatory, permitted and necessary. The counts below are those of Hafs by the route of ash-Shatibiyya, from the Arabic Wikipedia article on the rules of madd, which follows Ghayat al-Murid.

Heavy and light letters

Seven letters are always heavy: خ ص ض غ ط ق ظ (khāʾ, ṣād, ḍād, ghayn, ṭāʾ, qāf, ẓāʾ), which Ibn al-Jazari gathers in the words خص ضغط قظ. Two letters change: ra, and the lam in the name Allah. Every other letter is light. A heavy letter is said with the back of the tongue raised, so the sound comes out full and deep. Our guide to the Arabic sounds English speakers find hard shows how to make the four emphatic letters.

Ra is heavy with a fatha or a damma, as in لِرَبِّكَ (li-rabbika, 108:2), and light with a kasra, as in ٱلْقَارِعَةُ (al-qāriʿah, 101:1). A ra with a sukun takes the vowel before it: after a kasra it is light, unless a heavy letter comes after it or the kasra is not part of the word itself (both exceptions are in al-Muqaddimah al-Jazariyya). After a fatha or a damma it is heavy, as at the stop in وَٱلْعَصْرِ (wal-ʿaṣr, 103:1), the example the English Wikipedia article gives.

The lam of Allah is heavy after a fatha or a damma, as in قُلْ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ (qul huwa llāhu aḥad, 112:1), and light after a kasra, as in بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ (bismi llāhi, 1:1).

The lam of the article al- before a sun letter is the most common silent letter: it is written but not said, which is why the color-coded mushaf prints it in grey. Our page on sun and moon letters sorts all 28 letters.

Common tajweed mistakes

Most beginner mistakes come from applying a rule where it does not belong, or from letting a length drift. The sources above warn against these five:

• Merging a noon inside one word. Idgham is only between two words, so ٱلدُّنْيَا keeps its n.
• Hiding the meem before wāw or fāʾ. Before و and ف the meem is said clearly with closed lips.
• Turning the qalqalah bounce into a vowel. Wikipedia describes the bounce as a reduced vowel, a short echo, so iqraʾ must not become iqara.
• Changing the length of the same madd. The Arabic Wikipedia article on madd says every madd of one kind is held the same through a recitation: if the separated madd gets 4 counts once, it gets 4 every time.
• Reading a color as a rule. The colors are each printer's own key, so learn the rule and check the key of each mushaf you use.

Learn the sounds from a teacher

A chart tells you what a rule is. It cannot tell you whether you are doing it, because the rules are about sounds and you cannot hear your own mistakes. The owner's account of learning Arabic as an adult describes that order: reading first, then the rules, from a tutor. In its words, "As my reading speed increased, my tutor introduced different tajweed rules", and "we used a Quran with special color-coding" to practise them.

If your reading is still slow, start with how to read Arabic, with a reading drill and the vowel marks in our guide to Arabic diacritics. For a teacher, our comparison of online Quran classes by price per hour lists 11 providers. Tajweed covers how the Quran sounds. For what it means, see how to learn Quranic Arabic and the Quran root words explorer.

Sources

The rules and their letters come from two teaching poems, read on Arabic Wikisource. The counts come from the Arabic Wikipedia articles named above, and the Quran text from Quran.com:

• Sulayman al-Jamzuri, Tuhfat al-Atfal (completed 1198 AH): noon sakinah and tanween, ghunnah, meem sakinah, the kinds of madd.
• Ibn al-Jazari, al-Muqaddimah al-Jazariyya: qalqalah, the heavy letters, ra, the lam of Allah.
• ʿAtiyya Qabil Nasr, Ghayat al-Murid fi ʿIlm al-Tajwid (7th edition, 1992), as cited by the Arabic Wikipedia articles on the rules of madd and on ghunnah: the counts for Hafs.
• English Wikipedia, Tajwid, which cites Kristina Nelson's The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, and Arabic Wikipedia, qalqalah: the degrees of qalqalah and the example of the heavy ra.
• Quran.com: every Quran example, copied from its Uthmani text. We checked each example's colored letters against Quran.com's own tajweed marking wherever it marks that rule.

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