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- ORTHOGRAPHICAL PECULIARITIES
77
master the Arabic language is at a loss to know whether the provisional
vowel is a, i, or u. (They have invented a sign
which resembles very much the mark denoting the short vowel u, and even In de luxe printing it is deceptive. This was
apparently the reason why my Egyptian classmate in Germany pronounced uhdina instead of the correct ihdina.) I am
therefore persuaded to prepare a list of the passages of the Qur'an where a new phrase, that is a new verse, begins with
a word where the first letter of its spelling is a provisional vowel; and that will constitute the "List A" in this article. I do
this because the Egyptian editions of the Qur'an are more and more in common use. However, I humbly request
Egyptian authorities to remedy this defect in their invention.
Some other difficulties in Arabic script
With the adoption of dotted letters and accents of vocalization all the difficulties were not resolved. The Arabs call the
vowels "sick letters', and not without reason.
We have just seen how the provisional vowel (always written alike, i.e., alif, although pronounced differently : a, i, u)
is troublesome to the reader. The same alif has other difficulties. For instance, it is added at the end of masculine plurals
in the past tense, present tense, future tense and imperative mood, although it is never pronounced, as if it were a mere
sign of plural; and in the Qur'anic orthography it is added even to certain nouns besides the above-mentioned verbs, to
wit ( 
). As a
special "sign of silence" is marked on such a letter there is now no difficulty in reading correctly the passages of the
Qur'an where it occurs, and it occurs hundreds of times. In pre-Islamic days there was no uniformity in employing this
superfluous letter at the end of certain plural forms, and its traces are found in the Qur'an, where it is sometimes added to
the singular also where it is not necessary, and omitted in the plural where it was necessary according to the rule in
vogue. But, as said, a "sign of silence" is marked wherever it occurs in the Qur'an, and the absence of it in case of
necessity has no bearing on the subject which we are treating, viz., how to read correctly. This is not all with the letter
alif. In certain words it has special significance. For instance, in
the word ana (
) the final alif
is always silent; in the
word idhan (
) it is always
n, and as such always marked with the sign of "nunation". Again, in thousands
of cases
it is not written, although it is fully pronounced (for instance 
ought to