Choosing the correct seat for a hamza is one of the trickiest parts of Arabic spelling. This checker scans your text, locates every hamza, and applies the standard orthographic rules to flag seats that look wrong.
How it works
Arabic distinguishes the seat of a hamza according to the vowels around it. For a medial or final hamza the rule is the strongest-vowel rule:
vowel strength: kasra (i) > damma (u) > fatha (a) > sukun (no vowel)
take the stronger of (vowel on the hamza) and (vowel before it):
kasra -> ئ (ya seat / nabira)
damma -> ؤ (waw seat)
fatha -> أ (alif seat)
sukun -> ء (bare hamza on the line)A hamza at the start of a word is governed by a simpler rule: it always sits on an alif, written أ for fatha or damma and إ for kasra. The tool reads any harakat next to each hamza, applies the matching rule, and compares the expected seat with the one actually written.
Why hamza spelling is difficult
Hamza is not a base letter with a single code point — it is a glottal stop whose
written representation depends on its phonological environment. The five possible
seats are أ (alef), إ (alef below), ؤ (waw), ئ (ya), and ء (stand-alone).
Each is a distinct Unicode code point, so typing the wrong one is an invisible
spelling error in the sense that Arabic spell-checkers not specifically designed for
hamza orthography may not catch it.
The complication is that the correct seat is determined by the short vowels surrounding the hamza — exactly the vowels that modern Arabic normally leaves unwritten. This creates a circularity: you need the vowels to know the seat, but the vowels are not written. The answer is to know the root or the word’s grammar well enough to supply the vowels mentally.
Worked examples with vocalised text
سُئِلَ (he was asked). The hamza carries a kasra (short i). Kasra is the
strongest vowel, so the seat is ya: ئ. The word should be written with the hamza
on a ya seat, as shown.
مُؤَدَّب (well-mannered, disciplined). The damma before the hamza is stronger
than the fatha on it, so the seat is waw: ؤ.
مَسْأَلَة (question, matter). The hamza carries a fatha and the preceding
letter has a sukun. Fatha beats sukun, giving an alef seat: أ.
شَيْء (thing). The hamza falls after a sukun, and the hamza itself has no
vowel. Both positions carry sukun, so the hamza is written bare on the line: ء.
The initial-hamza shortcut
A hamza that begins a word always sits on alef, with no need to apply the strongest-vowel rule:
- Fatha or damma on the hamza →
أ - Kasra on the hamza →
إ
This is the hamza of قطع (cutting, interrupting), distinct from hamzat al-wasl
(the joining hamza of the definite article and some verb patterns), which is
written as ٱ but often omitted entirely in non-Quranic text.
When the checker reports unverifiable
Without short-vowel marks, the tool cannot determine which vowel is present and therefore cannot determine the expected seat. It reports these as unverifiable rather than guessing, to avoid producing false positives. To get the most out of the checker, add harakat to words whose hamza you are unsure about.