Heavy and Light Ra

What does Heavy and Light Ra mean?

Heavy and Light Ra (أحكام الراء): “tafkheem”: making rā heavy; “tarqeeq”: making it light

Rā is said heavy (the tongue rises and the sound fills the mouth) or light (the tongue stays low). Its vowel decides; when vowelless, what comes before it; when stopping, the letter before.

Heavy and Light Ra: when does it apply?

Heavy with a fathah or a dammah; light with a kasrah. When vowelless, it follows the vowel before: light after an original kasrah in the same word, unless a heavy letter follows. When stopping, what comes before it decides.

When stopping, rā is light after a kasrah (even with a vowelless letter in between, if it is not heavy) or after a vowelless yā; it is heavy after a fathah, a dammah, an alif or a wāw. This is the view of most teachers; others make light the rā that carried a kasrah.

Two transmitted ways: in 26:63, the vowelless rā before a qāf with a kasrah is read light, the way teachers read first, or heavy; when stopping, the rā whose final yā has dropped (in 54:16 and its like, and in 89:4) is read light, the way teachers read first, or heavy. Listen to the reciter on the page.

How to pronounce Heavy and Light Ra

Heavy rā: the tongue rises and the sound fills the mouth; light rā: the tongue stays low. Either way, a single tap, without rolling the rā.

The gesture

Heavy: the tongue rises, the sound fills the mouth. Light: the tongue stays low, the sound stays thin.

Avoid

Rolling the rā in several taps: it is said with a single strike, especially when it carries a shaddah.

The condition

Vowelless after a kasrah, rā is light only if the kasrah is original, in the same word, and no heavy letter follows it in that word. If one condition is missing, it is heavy.

Heavy and Light Ra: common mistakes

What is often heard, and how to fix it. The ▶ plays the right model, recited by al-Husary.

1. Rolling the rā, especially when doubled: it is said with a single tap.

   The right model · Al-Qadr 97:4

2. Making the rā with a kasrah heavy: with a kasrah, it is always light.

   The right model · Quraysh 106:2

3. Making light the vowelless rā at the start of a word that begins with hamzat al-wasl: the starting kasrah is not original, so the rā is heavy.

   The right model · Ash-Sharh 94:8

4. Making the vowelless rā light before a heavy letter in the same word (ق ص ط): it stays heavy, even after a kasrah.

   The right model · Al-Fajr 89:14

5. When stopping, making the rā heavy after a vowelless yā: after a yā, it is light.

   The right model · Al-'Adiyat 100:11

Heavy and Light Ra in numbers

Calculated by Tilawa on the text of the Madinah Mushaf (Hafs reading), each verse read in one go and stopped at its end: every rā that is said, without the separate letters at the start of some surahs.