Every other time you meet a meem, you close your lips. Here you do not — not completely. In تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ the lips come close but stay a hair apart while a soft hum runs through the nose for two counts. That is the whole of Ikhfa Shafawi, and it has exactly one trigger letter: ب. It is one of the three rules of Meem Sakinah inside the wider set of Tajweed rules — and the surah that holds its most famous example is one you already know by heart.
Also written Ikhfaa Shafawi, Ikhfa Shafawee or Ikhfa Shafawi Meem Sakinah — in Arabic, إخفاء شفوي.
⚡ The 30-second version: one trigger letter (ب) · a silent meem meets a ba · bring the lips close but do not press them shut · hold the ghunnah for two counts · then close into the ba. The theory takes a minute; the rest of this page is about making your mouth do it — and about not mixing it up with Iqlab.
What Is Ikhfa Shafawi?
Ikhfa Shafawi (إخفاء شفوي) is the Tajweed rule that applies when a meem sakinah (مْ) is followed by the letter ب. The meem is neither pronounced clearly nor merged — it is hidden, with the lips brought close but not pressed shut, and a ghunnah held for two counts.
Both halves of the name are literal. Ikhfa (إخفاء) means hiding or concealing. Shafawi (شفوي) means “of the lips”, from shafah (شفة) — the meem and the ba are both born at the two lips, the shafatayn. So the name gives you the action and the place: a hiding that happens at the lips.
Why “hidden” and not “merged”?
This is the question almost nobody answers, and it is the one that makes the rule stick. م and ب share the same makhraj — both are produced by the two lips — but their sifaat, their attributes, are different. The meem has ghunnah and flows through the nose; the ba does not. Two letters that share a makhraj but differ in attributes are described in classical Tajweed as mutaqaribayn in one respect and distinct in another, and that combination is exactly the condition for ikhfa rather than idgham.
If they were identical, the meem would disappear into the ba completely — that is what happens with meem into meem in Idgham Shafawi. Because they are not identical, the meem is not erased. It is muffled: present enough to be heard as a nasal hum, quiet enough that you never fully articulate it.
Ikhfa Shafawi Letters: Just One
There is one Ikhfa Shafawi letter: ب. That is the entire list. Every time a meem sakinah is followed by a ba, this rule applies — no exceptions, nothing to memorise.
What is worth memorising is how that one letter sits against the other two rules of the chapter, because the three of them together cover every letter in the alphabet:
How to spot it in the mushaf
In the Madani script the meem here carries no sukoon — it is written bare:
تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ
Not تَرْمِيهِمْ with a sukoon on the meem. A bare, unmarked meem is your cue that something other than Izhar is happening — so check the next letter. If it is ب, this is Ikhfa Shafawi. If it is م with a shaddah, it is Idgham Shafawi. Once you have noticed this a few times you stop working the rule out and simply see it.
⚠️ Note: in the overwhelming majority of cases the rule crosses a word boundary — the meem ends one word and the ب begins the next. It is the same shape every time, which is why the eye trick above works so well. More on the whole chapter in the rules of Meem Sakinah.
How to Pronounce Ikhfa Shafawi (4 Steps)
Four steps, and steps 1 and 3 are where the whole rule lives.
1. Bring your lips close, but leave a hair of space
Do not press. If they seal, you have produced Izhar Shafawi instead — a clear meem, which is a different rule.
2. Send the sound through your nose
A soft, steady ghunnah — a nasal hum, not a note sung from the throat. It should feel like it is sitting behind the bridge of your nose.
3. Hold for two counts
Roughly the time it takes to say “one-two” at recitation pace. Keep it level, and use the same length every single time — consistency matters more than precision.
4. Close into the ba and release it cleanly
Only at the end of the ghunnah do the lips actually meet, for the ب itself. Do not rush that transition — تَرْمِيهِم بِ comes out as tarmīhi-mmm-bi, one continuous stream.
👃 The nose-pinch test
Pinch your nose and recite تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ. The sound should be blocked — that blockage is proof the ghunnah is there. Now try أَلَمْ تَرَ: nothing changes, because Izhar has no ghunnah at all. Feeling that contrast once is worth more than any explanation.
The scholarly difference on lip position
It is worth being straight with you here, because pages on this rule usually are not. The majority position taught in the Hafs ‘an ‘Asim recitation — and the one we teach — is that the lips are brought close but not fully sealed. That small gap is what makes the sound a hiding rather than a clear articulation.
A minority of scholars describe the lips as touching lightly, with the ghunnah alone doing the work of distinguishing Ikhfa from Izhar. In practice the two descriptions produce a very similar sound, and no recitation is invalidated by either. What matters far more than the millimetre of gap is that the ghunnah is genuinely present and consistently held for two counts. If your teacher gives you the lighter-contact version, follow your teacher — you are not doing anything wrong.
Ikhfa Shafawi Examples in the Quran
Start with Surah Al-Fil. Ayah 4 holds the textbook example of the rule, and the rest of the surah gives you the contrast for free: the other silent meems in it are all Izhar Shafawi. One short surah, thirty seconds, both rules. The meem sakinah is marked in blue and the ب in orange; Izhar meems are green.
Surah Al-Fil walkthrough · hear Izhar and Ikhfa in one surah
Tap a line to hear it.
Now the wider set of Ikhfa Shafawi Quran examples. Ten passages, each one a meem sakinah meeting a ب, recited by Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary at teaching pace. Most are short ayat, so the clips run only a few seconds.
تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ
Al-Fil 105:4 · short clip · the textbook example
لَّسْتَ عَلَيْهِم بِمُصَيْطِرٍ
Al-Ghashiyah 88:22 · full ayah, very short · a good daily drill
إِنَّ رَبَّهُم بِهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ لَّخَبِيرٌ
Al-‘Adiyat 100:11 · full ayah · widely memorised
فَدَمْدَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِذَنبِهِمْ
Ash-Shams 91:14 · full ayah · an Izhar meem earlier in the same line
أَلَمْ يَعْلَم بِأَنَّ اللَّهَ يَرَىٰ
Al-‘Alaq 96:14 · short clip · the meem ends a verb, not a pronoun
وَهُم بِالْآخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ
Luqman 31:4 · short clip · Ikhfa then Izhar in one line
وَمَا هُم بِمُؤْمِنِينَ
Al-Baqarah 2:8 · full ayah · one of the most repeated phrases in the Quran
وَمَا هُم بِخَارِجِينَ
Al-Baqarah 2:167 · full ayah · same pattern, different ending
أَنبِئْهُم بِأَسْمَائِهِمْ
Al-Baqarah 2:33 · full ayah · the word أَنبِئْهُم itself starts with an Iqlab — both rules in one word
الَّذِي أَنتُم بِهِ مُؤْمِنُونَ
Al-Ma’idah 5:88 · full ayah · mid-sentence, easy to rush past
Ikhfa Shafawi examples from the Quran: the pattern
Look at the word sitting just before the ب in every row above: هُم, أَنتُم, عَلَيْهِم, رَبُّهُم. They are nearly all plural pronoun endings. Train your eye on those endings, then glance at the next letter — that single habit will catch the great majority of cases in the Quran.
Ikhfa Shafawi vs Iqlab: The Confusion Worth Clearing Up
This is the pair that trips up almost every intermediate learner, and for a good reason: they genuinely do sound nearly identical. Both end up as a hidden meem sound, followed by a ghunnah, followed by a ب. Your ear is not deceiving you.
The difference is entirely in what you started with. In Ikhfa Shafawi the letter was already a meem. In Iqlab it was a noon sakinah or a tanween, which the rule converts into a hidden meem before the ب. Same destination, different starting point — which is why you cannot tell them apart by listening alone, and why the mushaf marks them differently.
تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ
Ikhfa Shafawi · Al-Fil 105:4
لَنَسْفَعًا بِالنَّاصِيَةِ
Iqlab · Al-‘Alaq 96:15 · tanween turns into a meem
🔑 The one-line takeaway: if it was already a meem, it is Ikhfa Shafawi; if it was a noon or a tanween, it is Iqlab. And you never have to guess — the mushaf tells you, with that tiny م printed above the letter. The full treatment of Iqlab lives in our guide to the Noon Sakin rules.
Ikhfa Shafawi vs the Other Meem Sakinah Rules
All three Ikhfa Shafawi rules-of-the-chapter siblings start from the same place — a silent meem — and differ only in what your lips do next.
4 Common Ikhfa Shafawi Mistakes
1. Sealing the lips completely
The most common error by a wide margin. A full seal turns Ikhfa into Izhar, and the ghunnah usually disappears with it — two mistakes for the price of one.
2. Keeping the gap but dropping the ghunnah
The lips are right and the nose is doing nothing, so what comes out is a vague sound that is neither rule. The nose-pinch test above catches this one instantly.
3. Over-holding to four or six counts
The over-correction of mistake 2. It is a ghunnah, not a drone — two counts, then move on. Use the timer below to see what two counts actually feels like.
4. Rushing into the ba
The two counts collapse into one because the mouth is already reaching for the next word. The ghunnah belongs before the ba, not underneath it.
Practise Ikhfa Shafawi
Ghunnah timer: make two counts visible
Ghunnah length is the one part of this rule you cannot judge from the inside — it always feels right. Press and hold the bar while you recite تَرْمِيهِم بِ, releasing exactly when your nasal hold ends. Green means you landed in the two-count window.
Hold for about two counts — roughly one second at a slow recitation pace.
A guide, not a ruling: reciters differ slightly on the exact length. What matters is that yours is the same every time.
Ikhfa or Iqlab? Fifteen phrases
Every phrase below produces a hidden meem sound before a ب. Only one thing changes: what the letter was to begin with. Tap the rule you think applies — you get the reason either way.
Meem to begin with, or noon to begin with?
Listen and choose: which rule of Meem Sakinah?
Ten verses, one silent meem highlighted in each. Play the clip, then tap the rule you hear. Instant feedback, no sign-up.
Choose the rule that applies to the highlighted meem.
Play: Catch the Ikhfa Shafawi Fish (Free Game)
Recognition under time pressure is a different skill from recognition on a page. Catch only the words that contain Ikhfa Shafawi and let the rest swim past. It works on phones and tablets, and no account is needed.
Game not loading? Open it in a new tab · or browse all our free Tajweed games · the 3-rule tap game lives on the rules of Meem Sakinah hub.
Learn More
Ikhfa Shafawi is one of three rules that govern the silent meem. Here is what to study next:
All of them sit inside the wider set of Tajweed rules, and all are taught step by step in our Tajweed for adults and Tajweed for kids classes.
Ikhfa Shafawi FAQ
May Allah beautify your recitation and accept it from you. 🤲
Hafidha of the Quran · Arabic Language Graduate · Writer on Islamic Sciences
Jehad Mahmoud is a graduate of the Arabic Language department and a Hafidha of the Quran who writes the Islamic educational content at Quran Book Academy.
She writes with a focus on Tajweed, Quranic recitation and the sharia sciences, making technical rules accessible to English-speaking Muslim families.
Her articles are educational, not fatwa. For a ruling on a specific personal situation, readers are advised to consult a qualified scholar or mufti.
References & Sources
1. Al-Azhar Al-Sharif — azhar.eg
2. Surah Al-Fil 105 — Quran.com
3. Surah Al-Baqarah 2 — Quran.com
4. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics — Brill Reference Works
5. Recitation — Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary, via EveryAyah.com · verse text via Quran.com
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