Praise be to Allah.
It is not permissible to deliberately make mistakes when reciting the Holy Qur’an, even if that is for the purpose of teaching, because it is distorting the words of Allah, may He be exalted, and because of the possibility that the mistake may become fixed in the mind of the listener.
It says in al-Mawsoo‘ah al-Fiqhiyyah (35/214): The Qur’an is the miraculous words of Allah that was sent down to the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and was transmitted by tawaatur [i.e., it was transmitted from so many by so many that it is inconceivable that they could all have agreed upon a mistake].
It is haraam to deliberately mispronounce it, whether that changes the meaning or not, because its words and phrases are tawqeefi [not subject to change] and it was transmitted to us by tawaatur. Therefore it is not permissible to change any word or phrase in it by changing the vowels at the end of words, or by changing its letters by switching letters around. End quote.
It says in Fataawa al-Lajnah ad-Daa’imah (vol. 3, 2/219): What is the ruling on deliberately making mistakes in recitation of the Holy Qur’an when teaching, so as to draw the student’s attention to that? We visited a teacher in the company of the educational supervisor, and he approved of this method of teaching and asked us to do it, but we refused to do that, because this method is not usually used in teaching, and because the mistake may become deeply rooted in the students’ minds [thinking that this is correct], and you know how easily things may become entrenched in children’s minds when they are very young; the students are no older than eight or nine. Please advise us, may Allah reward you.
Answer: Deliberately making mistakes in recitation of the Holy Qur’an when training students, for the purpose of drawing their attention to that, is not known from any of the righteous early generations who conveyed the Holy Qur’an and taught it to people. Teaching the Qur’an to learners is an act of worship by means of which one may draw closer to Allah, may He be exalted, so it is not permissible to do it in any manner other than the correct manner.
The Qur’an teacher may pose questions to his students to help them to memorize better, and to deal with any mispronunciations. If he does that, there will be no need to deliberately distort the verse when reciting it to the student.
And Allah is the source of strength. May Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and companions.
Permanent Committee for Academic Research and Ifta’.
Saalih ibn Fawzaan al-Fawzaan, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abd ar-Rahmaan ibn Ghadyaan, ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn ‘Abdillah ibn Muhammad Aal ash-Shaykh, ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Mutlaq, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Ali ar-Rukbaan, Ahmad ibn ‘Ali Sayr al-Mubaaraki. End quote.
The teacher should use the prescribed methods to help the student memorize and correct their mispronunciations, by means of questions and tests, and constantly listening to their recitation and correcting their pronunciation.
And Allah knows best.
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