Dagger Alif in Arabic: Why Hadha Has a Long “a”

01Find the raised alif

The short upright mark above ha is called dagger alif or superscript alif. It indicates a long a after that consonant. It sits above the normal writing line rather than taking the space of a full alif.

Fathah is the slanting short-vowel stroke; the raised alif supplies the length information. Fonts may position these marks differently, so inspect the word as a whole.

02Recognise the same word without the mark

All three forms represent hadha. Ordinary writing often omits the raised mark and other vowel signs. The first a remains long in pronunciation.

The full alif already visible at the end of hadha writes its final long a. It does not account for the earlier long a after ha. Learn both the pronunciation and the conventional spelling.

03Read three familiar words

In hadha and hadhihi, hold the a after h. In dhalika, hold the a after dh. Dh represents the sound at the start of English “this,” not an ordinary d.

Our plain transliteration does not use length symbols. The Arabic and these pronunciation notes show where to hold the vowel.

04Keep the sound in a sentence

Read the first word smoothly, then the object. Adding another word does not remove the long a. Miftahun is masculine, while nafidhatun is feminine, so the pointing words differ.

Here the new skill is reading the spelling. For a full explanation of choosing a pointing word, revisit this and that in Arabic.

05Preserve the conventional spelling

When writing normally, use هذا, هذه and ذلك. Do not insert a new full-sized alif merely because you hear a long vowel at the start of these words.

This is a small group of established spellings, not a licence to omit alif from other words. بَابٌ (babun, a door) still needs its normal alif.

Practise by reading a marked word, covering it, writing its ordinary spelling and checking it again. Use a reliable reading model to keep length audible when the small mark disappears.