Difference between the dad and the emphatic za

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The difference between the dad and the emphatic za

On the difference between the pronunciation of the dad and that of the emphatic za.

Some people pronounce the dad like an emphatic za, while knowing that there is a difference between the two letters, both from the point of view of the point of articulation and of the sifah. As for the point of articulation, the dad emerges from one of the edges of the tongue with the part of the upper molars facing it, as has been indicated in the discussion of the makharij; and the emphatic za emerges from the back of the tip of the tongue with the tips of the two upper rows of teeth: that is a great difference between the two.

As for the sifah, the two letters share five sifat: jahr, rakhawah, isti'aalah, itbaq and ismat; and the dad alone possesses the sifah of istitaalah.

On this basis, the difference between the two letters is clear, from the point of view of the point of articulation and of the sifah; and without this difference, one of the two would be exactly the other in pronunciation¹.

That is why it falls to the reciter to distinguish them from one another, so that he pronounces the dad mustatila (lengthened), whereupon the extension of the voice appears during the pressing of the edge of the tongue against the part of the upper molars facing it.

Imam Ibn al-Jazari alluded to this with his verses:

والضاد باستطالة ومخرج ... ميز من الظاء

"And the dad, by istitaalah and by the point of articulation... distinguish it from the emphatic za".

As he said in the Muqaddima: "Know that the letter dad is, among the letters, the one without equal in difficulty for the tongue, and few are those who execute it well. Some of them make it emerge like an emphatic za, and that is not permitted in the word of Allah the Most High, because of the contradiction with the meaning Allah intended. Indeed, if we said in الضالين: al-zalin (with the emphatic za), the meaning would become 'those who remain' (al-da'imina), and that contradicts what Allah the Most High intended, for misguidance (al-dalal) with the dad is the opposite of guidance, whereas 'al-zulul' with the emphatic za designates remaining, as in His words: ظَلَّ وَجْهُهُ مُسْوَدًّا ² and the like. The example of the one who turns the dad into an emphatic za in this case is like the one who changes the seen into a sad, in the verse: وَأَسَرُّوا النَّجْوَى ¹, or who changes the sad into a seen, in the verse: وَاسْتَكْبَرُوا اسْتِكْبَارًا ²: the first word comes from 'as-sirr' (the secret) and the second from 'al-israr' (insistence). End of quotation, adapted and abridged³".

That is why one must guard against changing the real point of articulation of the letter, for it constitutes a lahn jali (manifest error) that the reciter is not permitted to commit, so as not to change the meaning Allah, the Most High, intended.