Lean meat, lean on me, leniency…. Which “leen” is it? Let’s find out.

Al-Madd Al-Leen[1]: easy/eased prolongation only occurs when the reciter is stopping recitation after the word containing the madd, eg. for a breath, or at the end of an ayah, etc.

Let’s look at why this is so.

Al-madd al-leen occurs when a waaw saakinah (  وْ ) or a yaa saakinah ( يْ ) are preceded by a letter with the fat-h diacritic ( ــَـ).

To be able to sound al-madd al-leen, the yaa or waaw must be “stretched” and not simply read with a sukoon.

The length of elongation is a choice made by the reader of either:

2 counts; or

4 counts; or

6 counts.

But not all three.

Or two.

Or a mix.

Conditions of al-madd al-leen:

-it’s letters are waaw saakinah and yaa saakinah

-these letters must be preceded by a letter that has a fat-ha

-to sound this madd, the reciter must stop after saying the word containing the madd (otherwise the madd is void).

Contrary to Al-Madd Al-‘Iwad, this madd becomes void if you are not going to stop at the end of the word. An example of this is as follows:

الْبَيْتَ مَثَابَةً

Al-bayta mathaabatan

Here we can see that the conditions of al-madd al-leen are fulfiled in that the harf madd yaa has been preceded by a fat-ha. But we do not stretch this yaa for 2, 4, or 6 counts. Why?

Because we continued onto the next word, mathaabatan.

It is situations like these that al-madd al-leen becomes completely void.

An example of when you do sound al-madd al-leen:

أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ

Ahla-l-bayti

Ahla-l-lbayyt

Visible after the word bayt, is the “jeem” character noting to the reciter it is preferable to stop reading. In this situation, we stretch the yaa in bayt for 2, 4 or 6 counts and stop for a breath. More examples:

خَوْفٍ

Khawwf

وَالصَّيْفِ

Al-sayyf

A side note to readers who are more knowledgeable in Tajweed: al-madd al-leen relies on al-madd al-‘aarid lil sukoon. If you are going to stop after a word, you sound the ‘aarid madd. This is the same case with al-madd al-leen only it’s special case has been noted down as an entirely different tajweed rule.

Resources Link:

Sukoon [Gatway To Arabic: page 48]

– ‘Jadwal Al-Mudood’, sixth madd listed

– ‘Tajweed Basics Foundations And More’ covers a range of mudood

Note, these documents are found on the resources page.