Recitation · a Light

The command to recite slowly created a whole discipline

In an early Makkan chapter addressed to the Prophet ﷺ standing at night, the instruction is to recite the Qur'an in tartil, measured and unhurried. Tajwid, the science that grew from that word, comes from a root meaning to make something well. It is not about having a fine voice. It is a precise phonetic system: which letters are held and for how many counts, where the nasal sound called ghunna is sustained, which consonants merge into the next, which are hidden, which are formed at the back of the tongue against the soft palate. It is taught by ear and corrected by ear, and it has held the pronunciation of a seventh century text steady across languages that contain none of those sounds.

Surah al-Muzzammil, verse 4

Source · Qur'an 73:4