Grammatical Guidelines for the Phenomenon of Bad Pausing between Essential Sentence Components (Optional)

Abstract

This study investigates one of the key linguistic phenomena in Arabic—pause and initiation (Al-waqf wa-l-ibtidāʾ)—with a particular focus on the improper pause (Al-waqf al-qabīḥ). The phenomenon is examined within the Qur’anic text from a grammatical perspective, exploring how grammarians interpreted and rejected this type of pause. The research defines the concept and occurrences of the improper pause in Qur’anic recitation, highlighting the views of major grammarians who deemed it unacceptable due to its potential to distort meaning or disrupt syntactic coherence. It further outlines the grammatical principles underlying this prohibition, such as the interdependence of predicate and subject, and the necessity of maintaining sentence unity without interruption.

The analytical part relies on five Qur’anic editions, referencing Dr. Ismaeel Sadiq Abdul-Raheem’s statistical study of forbidden pauses. The findings reveal that such pauses typically occur between core sentence elements or between a main clause and its complement.

The study concludes that the improper pause is not merely a phonetic or recitational issue but fundamentally a grammatical and linguistic rule preserving the integrity and cohesion of Qur’anic structure.