Where Letters Are Made — the Makhārij
The organs of speech, the seventeen makhārij, and how to find any letter's point
Core idea
Every Arabic letter is born at one particular place in the mouth or throat — its makhraj. Producing each letter from its right place is the first step of tajwīd: it is what keeps one letter distinct from another and keeps the meaning intact.
Why it matters
One wrong makhraj can turn a letter into another and change the meaning: ʿalīm (all-knowing) and alīm (painful) differ only in where the first letter is made — ʿayn from the middle of the throat, hamza from its deepest part. Qalb (heart) and kalb (dog) are one small step apart on the back of the tongue. That is why tajwīd starts here, before the qualities of the letters and the rules: everything after is built on this.
First: the organs of speech
Before placing each letter, meet the organs the sound travels through. Breath rises from the lungs, passes the throat, then the mouth or the nose; wherever an organ blocks or narrows it, a letter is formed. There are four main areas: the jawf (the open cavity), the throat, the mouth (palate, tongue, teeth and lips) and the khayshūm (the nasal passage).
الجَوْف
The jawf — the open cavity
The empty space running through the throat and mouth. Nothing blocks the sound there, which is why the madd letters simply run until the breath runs out.
الحَلْق
The throat (ḥalq)
Divided into three parts by their distance from the mouth.
- أقصى الحلق — the deepest part, at the larynx and vocal folds
- وسط الحلق — the middle, at the epiglottis
- أدنى الحلق — the part nearest the mouth, at the root of the tongue
الحَنَك الأعلى
The roof of the mouth
The roof of the mouth, from front to back.
- اللِّثَة — the gum ridge behind the upper teeth
- مقدَّم الحنك — the front of the palate, just behind the gums
- الحنك العظمي (الصُّلب) — the hard palate
- الحنك اللحمي (الرِّخْو) — the soft palate
- اللَّهاة — the uvula
اللِّسان
The tongue
The busiest organ of speech — ten of the seventeen makhārij are on it. Its parts, from back to front:
- جَذْر اللسان — the root, down at the throat
- أقصى اللسان — the back of the tongue
- وسط اللسان — the middle
- طرف اللسان ورأسه — the blade and the very tip
- حافّتا اللسان — its two side edges, from back to tip
الأسنان
The teeth (32)
An adult has thirty-two teeth, half above and half below. Everything behind the canines is called aḍrās (molars and premolars) — twenty in all.
- الثَّنايا (٤) — the four front incisors, two up and two down
- الرَّباعِيات (٤) — the lateral incisors beside them
- الأنياب (٤) — the canines
- الضَّواحِك (٤) — the first premolars
- الطَّواحِن (١٢) — the grinding teeth
- النَّواجِذ (٤) — the last molars (wisdom teeth)
الشَّفَتان
The lips
Upper and lower; they work by closing, by rounding, or by touching the teeth.
الخَيْشوم
The khayshūm — the nasal passage
The inner, upper part of the nose — the channel the nasal sound (ghunnah) comes out of.
Lesson
What is a makhraj? Literally, “a place of exit.” In tajwīd it is the spot where a letter is born — the point where one of the organs of speech blocks or narrows the breath and so gives the letter its sound.
Five general areas: the jawf (cavity), the throat, the tongue, the lips and the khayshūm (nasal passage). Three of them are precise — you can feel an exact spot: throat, tongue, lips. Two are estimated — not a spot but a channel the sound flows through: the jawf and the khayshūm.
How do you find a letter's makhraj? Say the letter with a sukūn (or a shadda) after a voweled hamza — ab, at, aq — and notice where the sound stops. That stopping point is the makhraj. Try “ab”: the sound is cut off between the lips. Try “aq”: it is cut off at the very back of the tongue.
How many makhārij are there? Scholars count them in three well-known ways. Seventeen — the count of al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad, followed by Ibn al-Jazarī; most teachers use it today and this lesson follows it. Sixteen — Sībawayh's count, followed by al-Shāṭibī: he did not treat the jawf as its own makhraj and spread the madd letters over the throat, tongue and lips. Fourteen — al-Farrāʾ, Quṭrub and al-Jarmī: no jawf, and lām, nūn and rāʾ counted as one makhraj. The difference is in how the places are counted, not in how the letters are pronounced.
In detail, with examples
Tap a number to see that makhraj and its letters
- Jawf (cavity)
- Throat
- Tongue
- Lips
- Khayshūm (nasal)
The jawf — 1 makhraj
Home of the three madd letters; they end when the breath ends.
The throat — 3 makhārij
Six letters, two from each of its three parts.
The tongue — 10 makhārij
Eighteen letters, from the back of the tongue to its tip.
The lips — 2 makhārij
Four letters: the fāʾ alone, then wāw, bāʾ and mīm.
The khayshūm — 1 makhraj
The makhraj of ghunnah — the nasal sound that accompanies nūn and mīm.
Ḥafṣ and Qālūn
Qālūn's hāʾ with sukūn in wahwa
Qālūn reads huwa and hiya with a sukūn on the hāʾ when a wāw, fāʾ or lām comes before them; Ḥafṣ keeps the vowel. So a Qālūn reader meets a hāʾ with sukūn mid-sentence — a ready-made drill for the hāʾ at the deepest part of the throat.
Qālūn: hāʾ with sukūn
The two hamzas of a-andhartahum
Ḥafṣ pronounces both hamzas fully, each one a complete stop at the deepest point of the throat. Qālūn eases the second one — halfway between a hamza and an alif — and inserts an alif between the two. Same makhraj; Qālūn simply does not close it fully on the second hamza.
Qālūn: second hamza eased, with an alif inserted
In your mushaf
The khayshūm in the diagram is drawn in the same green the app's mushaf uses for nasal rules (ghunnah, ikhfāʾ, idghām with ghunnah, iqlāb). Every green letter in your mushaf is a sound passing through here — we come back to it in the lesson on nūn sākinah and tanwīn.
Key points
- 1
A makhraj is the place a letter is born; the main organs are the jawf, the throat, the mouth and the khayshūm.
- 2
Five general areas — jawf, throat, tongue, lips, khayshūm — divided into seventeen precise makhārij.
- 3
To find a makhraj: say the letter with sukūn or shadda after a voweled hamza; where the sound stops is the makhraj.
- 4
The throat has three makhārij (ʾ h / ʿ ḥ / gh kh), the tongue ten, the lips two, the jawf and the khayshūm one each.
- 5
Seventeen is Ibn al-Jazarī's count; others count sixteen or fourteen — the pronunciation is the same.
Glossary
مَخْرَج
makhraj (pl. makhārij)
the point where a letter is produced
الجَوْف
al-jawf
the cavity of throat and mouth, where the madd letters are made
الخَيْشوم
al-khayshūm
the inner nasal passage, where ghunnah is made
حروف المدّ
ḥurūf al-madd
alif, wāw and yāʾ with sukūn after their matching vowel
الثَّنايا
al-thanāyā
the four front incisors
اللِّثَة
al-litha
the gum ridge
Test yourself
Question 1 of 7
How many makhārij are there in Ibn al-Jazarī's count?
Sources
مَخَارِجُ الحُرُوفِ سَبْعَةَ عَشَرْ ... عَلَى الَّذِي يَخْتَارُهُ مَنِ اخْتَبَرْ
“The makhārij of the letters are seventeen, according to the view chosen by those who have tested it.”
Ibn al-Jazarī (d. 833 AH), al-Muqaddima al-Jazariyya, chapter on the makhārij, verse 1
ومعنى المخرج أنه الموضع الذي ينشأ منه الحرف.
“The meaning of makhraj is the place from which the letter arises.”
Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī (d. 444 AH), al-Taḥdīd fī al-Itqān wa-l-Tajwīd
Prepared from
This lesson was written in our own words from the material below; no text or image from it is reproduced.
- «خلاصة مخارج الحروف» — one-page makhārij tree: order of the seventeen makhārij and the table of counts; tree rebuilt in our own layout
- «دراسة مخارج الحروف» — two-page study note: definition, the test for finding a makhraj, precise vs estimated, the three counts; rewritten
- «صور أعضاء النطق» — scanned pages of a printed book (pp. 70–78): names of the organs and of the parts of throat, palate, tongue and teeth; the diagram here is an original schematic, no image reused
- «باب مخارج الحروف من الجزرية» — text of the classical poem (11 verses): order of makhārij and letters as in the poem
- «مخارج الحروف وصفاتها» — table of the 28 letters: cross-check of each letter's makhraj
Next lesson
Qualities of the Letters