The article al-

ٱلْ — alif and lām — is the word “the”, glued to the front of a noun. How you say it depends on the letter after it.

Moon letters: say the l

Before these fourteen letters the l is pronounced, and it carries a sukūn:

ا ب ج ح خ ع غ ف ق ك م ه و ي

They’re called moon letters because ٱلْقَمَر, “the moon”, is the model.

Sun letters: the l disappears

Before the other fourteen, the l is written but not said. Instead the next letter doubles — you’ll see a shadda on it and no sukūn on the lām:

ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ل ن

Named after ٱلشَّمْس, “the sun”: ash-shams, never al-shams.

A quick test: every sun letter is made with the tip of the tongue, the same place as the l. The l simply melts into it.

The disappearing a

The alif of al- only sounds at the start of a sentence. After another word it goes silent and the word before slides straight into the l. You’ll often see it written with a small mark on top, ٱ, which means “skip me when joined”:

bi + al-qalam → bil-qalam. fī + al-bayt → fil-bayt.