Arabic Alphabet for Quran: All 28 Letters and Their Forms

The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters. All of them are consonants; three of them double as long vowels. Every letter has an isolated form, and most also have a form for the start, middle and end of a join — which is why a page of Arabic contains far more shapes than twenty-eight, and why learning the isolated forms alone leaves you unable to read.

Read the table right to left within the forms column: the first shape is the letter at the beginning of a join, then the middle, then the end.

The 28 letters

#	Letter	Name	Sound	Joined forms
1	ا	alif	A carrier for a long aa sound, and the seat that hamza often sits on.	ـا
2	ب	bāʾ	b as in book.	بـ ـبـ ـب
3	ت	tāʾ	t as in table.	تـ ـتـ ـت
4	ث	thāʾ	th as in think, unvoiced.	ثـ ـثـ ـث
5	ج	jīm	j as in jam.	جـ ـجـ ـج
6	ح	ḥāʾ	A strong, breathy h from the middle of the throat. No English equivalent.	حـ ـحـ ـح
7	خ	khāʾ	kh, as in the Scottish loch.	خـ ـخـ ـخ
8	د	dāl	d as in door.	ـد
9	ذ	dhāl	th as in this, voiced.	ـذ
10	ر	rāʾ	A tapped or lightly rolled r, closer to Spanish than English.	ـر
11	ز	zāy	z as in zoo.	ـز
12	س	sīn	s as in sun.	سـ ـسـ ـس
13	ش	shīn	sh as in shoe.	شـ ـشـ ـش
14	ص	ṣād	A heavy s, pronounced with the tongue raised and the mouth fuller.	صـ ـصـ ـص
15	ض	ḍād	A heavy d, made against the side of the tongue.	ضـ ـضـ ـض
16	ط	ṭāʾ	A heavy t, fuller and deeper than ت.	طـ ـطـ ـط
17	ظ	ẓāʾ	A heavy voiced th, the emphatic counterpart of ذ.	ظـ ـظـ ـظ
18	ع	ʿayn	A voiced sound produced in the middle of the throat. Has no English parallel.	عـ ـعـ ـع
19	غ	ghayn	Close to a French r, or a gargled g.	غـ ـغـ ـغ
20	ف	fāʾ	f as in fish.	فـ ـفـ ـف
21	ق	qāf	A k formed far back, against the soft palate.	قـ ـقـ ـق
22	ك	kāf	k as in kite.	كـ ـكـ ـك
23	ل	lām	l as in light.	لـ ـلـ ـل
24	م	mīm	m as in moon.	مـ ـمـ ـم
25	ن	nūn	n as in noon.	نـ ـنـ ـن
26	ه	hāʾ	h as in house, lighter than ح.	هـ ـهـ ـه
27	و	wāw	w as in wall, or a long oo.	ـو
28	ي	yāʾ	y as in yes, or a long ee.	يـ ـيـ ـي

The six letters that do not join forwards

ا د ذ ر ز و

These connect to the letter before them but never to the letter after. Wherever one appears inside a word, the join breaks and a gap opens up. New readers consistently mistake those gaps for word boundaries and read a single word as two. If you see a gap, look at its width: a genuine space between words is noticeably wider.

Groups that look alike

Arabic economises on shapes and distinguishes letters by dots. Learning them in these groups is faster than learning them in alphabetical order, because you are learning one shape and a dot pattern rather than several unrelated symbols.

Group	Difference
ب ت ث	One shape. One dot below, two dots above, three dots above.
ج ح خ	One shape. Dot below, no dot, dot above.
د ذ	No dot, one dot above.
ر ز	No dot, one dot above.
س ش	No dots, three dots above.
ص ض	No dot, one dot above.
ط ظ	No dot, one dot above.
ع غ	No dot, one dot above.
ف ق	One dot above, two dots above.

At the start and in the middle of a join, ن takes the same base shape as the ب ت ث group, so in practice you are distinguishing five letters by their dots there, not three.

Light and heavy letters

Seven letters are pronounced with the back of the tongue raised, which gives them a fuller, deeper quality. They are called the letters of istiʿlāʾ:

خ ص ض ط ظ غ ق

Four of them have a light counterpart that English speakers habitually substitute: ص for س, ض for د, ط for ت, ظ for ذ. These pairs are genuinely different letters, and confusing them changes words. They are worth deliberate practice early, before the habit sets. See makharij for how each is produced.

Four extra shapes you will meet immediately

Shape	Name	What it is
ء	hamza	A glottal stop — the catch in the middle of English uh-oh. It is written on its own or seated on ا, و or ي.
ة	tāʾ marbūṭa	A form of ت found at the end of many words. Pronounced as t when reading on, and as a soft h when stopping there.
ى	alif maqṣūra	Written like ي without dots at the end of a word, but pronounced as a long aa.
لا	lām-alif	Not a separate letter — the mandatory ligature formed when ل is followed by ا.

Find these letters in the Quran

Recognising a letter on a chart is not the same as recognising it inside a word, joined to its neighbours and carrying vowel marks. Pick a letter and a short surah below, and see every word in that surah that contains it.

Letter

Surah

Loading…

Word data from Quran.com via UmmahAPI. Matching ignores vowel marks, so a word counts whether or not the letter carries a haraka.

How to actually learn them

Three to five letters at a time, in the lookalike groups above, not in alphabetical order.
Always in all four forms. Cover the name and identify the letter from the shape alone.
Aloud, every time. Silent recognition drills leave pronunciation untested.
By hand. Writing each form a few times does more for recall than an extra ten minutes of looking.
In real text as soon as possible. Open a short surah and find the letters you know. Partial reading of a real page is more motivating, and more useful, than complete mastery of a worksheet.

A qaida presents exactly this sequence with graded drills, which is why it remains the standard first book. When the shapes are secure, move on to reading words.

The Arabic alphabet for Quran reading