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When is the letter Yā’ in the imperfect verb pronounced with a Dammah (such as "yuʿṭīk") and when is it pronounced with a Fatḥah (such as "yajiduk")?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The prefix of the present tense verb (harf al-mudhara'ah) is ضمّ (ḍammah/u-vowel) if the past tense verb is quadriliteral, for example: "yuʿṭīka" (He gives you) from "aʿṭā" (He gave). It is فتح (fatḥa/a-vowel) if the past tense verb is not quadriliteral (triliteral, quinqueliteral, or sexiliteral), for example: "yajiduka" (He finds you) from "wajada" (He found), and "yataʿallam" (He learns), and "yastakhrij" (He extracts). As Ibn Malik explained in his Lāmiyyah, the recitation of the Quran relies on reception, listening, and the accurately vowel-marked Mushaf, not on the rules of the Arabic language, because recitation is a followed Sunnah.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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