See also:أ[U+0623 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA ABOVE],ٵ[U+0675 ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA ALEF],ا[U+0627 ARABIC LETTER ALEF],اً,ٱ[U+0671 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WASLA],إ[U+0625 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA BELOW],andا-
A form of the initial interrogative particle that indicates a yes-or-no question. As it is written together with the following word, when this word begins withال(al-,“the”) they are orthographically morphed together and written with aمَدَّة(madda) diacritic instead of maintaining both.
Sahih International:Say, "Have you seen what Allah has sent down to you of provision of which you have made [some] lawful and [some] unlawful?" Say, "Has Allah permitted you [to do so], or do you invent [something] about Allah?"
Used word-initially to represent the phoneme/ɑː/~/ɒː/. Since all word initial vowels are proceeded by a glottal stop, it is almost always pronounced as[ʔɑː]~[ʔɒː]. It can appear in the middle of the word, but that is less common; words such asقرآن(qur'ān /ġor'ân) andکوآلا(kō'ālā /ku'âlâ) and compounds likeسرآغاز(sar'āġāz /sar'âġâz)
Used to represent the phoneme/aː/. It is only used word-initially, with the medial & final forms for/aː/ beingـَا, except in rare cases with certain diphthongs.
