• (ٱ) waṣla: Comes most commonly at the beginning of a word. Indicates a type of that is pronounced only when the letter is read at the beginning of the talk. • (آ) madda: A written replacement for a that is followed by an alif, i.e.
Read as a glottal stop followed by a long /aː/, e.g. ءاداب، ءاية، قرءان، مرءاة are written out respectively as آداب، آية، قرآن، مرآة.
This writing rule does not apply when the alif that follows a is not a part of the stem of the word, e.g. نتوءات is not written out as نتوآت as the stem نتوء does not have an alif that follows its. • (ــٰـ) superscript alif (also 'short' or 'dagger alif': A replacement for an original alif that is dropped in the writing out of some rare words, e.g. لاكن is not written out with the original alif found in the word pronunciation, instead it is written out as لٰكن. • ḥarakāt (In Arabic: حركات also called تشكيل tashkīl): • (ــَـ) fatḥa (a) • (ــِـ) kasra (i) • (ــُـ) ḍamma (u) • (ــْـ) sukūn (no vowel) • The ḥarakāt or vowel points serve two purposes: • They serve as a phonetic guide. They indicate the presence of short vowels (fatḥa, kasra, or ḍamma) or their absence (sukūn).