Tuḥfat al-Aṭfāl

This didactic poem in rajaz meter covers the essential rules of noon sakinah, tanwin, meem sakinah, and madd providing the vocabulary every student needs to recite the Quran with correct pronunciation. Its rhymed brevity makes it the most commonly memorized tajweed poem for children and beginners across the Muslim world.

Sulayman ibn Husayn al-Jamzuri (~1750-1819 CE) was an Egyptian scholar of Quranic recitation (tajweed) who spent most of his life in Tanta in the Nile Delta. He studied the recitation traditions transmitted through the scholars of al-Azhar and composed this poem as a versified teaching aid dedicated to his teacher, the recitation master Shaykh Mihi. The Tuhfat al-Atfal remains the most widely memorized tajweed poem in the Muslim world today.

• Rules of Noon Sakinah and Tanwin four cases: izhar, idgham, iqlab, ikhfa
• Rules of Meem Sakinah three cases: ikhfa shafawi, idgham shafawi, izhar shafawi
• Natural (asli/tabiiy) madd
• Extended madd types: Madd wajib muttasil and Madd jaiz munfasil
• Madd due to hamzah, sukun, and cases of stopping
• Heavy (tafkhim) and light (tarqiq) letters
• Rules of the definite article Lam: shamsiyyah and qamariyyah
• Light and heavy pronunciation of Ra in different contexts
• Rules of stopping and pausing at the end of verses (waqf)