In the context of the recitation of the Quran, tajweed or tajwīd (Arabic: تجويد, romanized: tajwīd, lit. 'elocution', /tadʒ.wiːd/) is a set of rules for the correct pronunciation of the letters with all their qualities and applying the various traditional methods of recitation, known as qira'at. In Arabic, the term tajwid is derived from the verb جود (jawwada), meaning enhancement or to make something excellent. Technically, it means giving every letter its right in reciting the Quran.
Tajwīd is a system by which one learns the pronunciation of Quranic words as pronounced by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The beginning of the system of tajwīd was when the early Islamic states or caliphates expanded in the third century of Hijra (9th century / 184–288 AH) under the Abbasid Caliphate, where errors in pronunciation increased in the Quran due to the entry of many non-Arab Muslims into Islam. So the scholars of the Quran began to write the rules of intonation. It is said that the first person to collect the system of tajwīd in his book Kitāb al-Qirā'āt was Imām Abu ʻUbaid al-Qāsim bin Salām (c. 770–838 CE) in the third century of Hijra.
