Phonological Processes in Qur'an: The Case Study of Ibdāl

The Arab tribes inhabited throughout the Arabian Peninsula and had a sedentary life. Some of them were sedentary tribes while others were nomadic tribes seeking for water and food in the desert. Undoubtedly, the nomadic tribes who lived in the desert had their own way of pronouncing words, which were different from the way of sedentary tribes and had a great effect on the variety of Arabic accents and the characteristics of each one. Some pronunciations were included in the elements of the language of the tribe and in the lexical domain of the Holy Qur'an, and in a region the pronunciation of a word was with a letter which was other than the letter used in another region. In the framework of historical linguistics and in order to determine the role of culture and region in the phonemes of the Arabic language the goal of this study is to scrutinize the phonetic changes of Arabic language in the context of the Holy Qur'an according to Ibdāl which is a phonological process.
Research methodology is descriptive. First, we peruse the Arab motives to pronounce a letter in a different way. Then by assessing the human geography and Arabic language Tajweed, we try to find the origin of the phenomenon of Ibdāl, and thereafter, examine the phonetic system of Arabic language vowels that have same place of pronunciation or common characteristics. Then, we will study the phenomenon with regard to the former and latter letter. By giving examples of Ibdāl, we will understand the role and contribution of the tribes in such processes.