The Emergence of the Term «Tajwīd»

Khusnora Mirakhmadova

doi:10.57033/mijournals-2026-4-0358

Keywords

science of tajwīd recitation of the Qurʾan points of articulation properties of the letters tartīl Ibn Mujāhid the Khāqāniyya ode Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī.. INTRODUCTION The term tajwīd in the sense of the science that studies the points of articulation of the letters their properties and the rulings that arise when they are pronounced in connected speech became known only in the fourth century of the Hijra nor are any books written upon this subject before that century known. The reason for this is that the science of tajwīd appeared as an independent science two centuries later than the sciences of the Qurʾan and of the Arabic language (Ghānim Qaddūrī Ḥamad 2003). In certain later sources it is stated that the Companion ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd may God be pleased with him said: «jawwidū al-Qurʾān…». Relying upon this report some recent researchers say that the origin of the science of tajwīd goes back to the age of the Companions and they say further: «We do not possess sources that would describe for us completely the path traversed by the science of tajwīd until it reached the level 277 www.mijournals.com E-ISSN:3070-8370

Abstract

The article analyses, from a scholarly and historical point of view, the emergence of the science of tajwīd, the process of its historical formation and the stages of its development as an independent science. It examines the lexical and the technical meanings of the term tajwīd, the concepts employed in the earliest period of Islam in regard to the recitation of the Qurʾan, and the reflection of the rules of tajwīd in the written sources. In particular it sets out the contribution made to the development of the science of tajwīd by Ibn Mujāhid, Abū Muzāḥim al-Khāqānī, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Saʿīdī, Makkī b. Abī Ṭālib and Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī. It likewise analyses, by comparative-historical and source-critical methods, the content and the methodological features of the earliest works of tajwīd created in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Hijra and their place in the science of Qurʾanic recitation. As a result of the research it is established that the rules of tajwīd were at first preserved through oral tradition and were only afterwards systematized as a distinct scholarly direction.

References

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