خَاء
Where it comes from
All 17 pointsThe nearest throat أدنى الحلق
The top of the throat, where it meets the mouth. Khāʾ is the scraping sound with no voice; ghayn is the same scrape with the voice switched on.
How to write it
The isolated form, shown as one common way to write it — Arabic stroke order is not fixed as rigidly as it is in some scripts.
- Stroke 1 of 3: part of the letter's body.
- Stroke 2 of 3: part of the letter's body.
- Stroke 3 of 3: a dot, added after the body is finished.
All four forms
The short gold marks show which sides the letter joins to its neighbours.
Kha connects on both sides, so it has all four forms.
Same shape, different dots
These letters share one skeleton — only the dots tell them apart.
Often confused with
In a word
Isolated
أَخٌ
akh
brother
Initial
خَلَقَ
khalaqa
He created
Medial
نَخْل
nakhl
palm trees
Final
شَيْخٌ
shaykh
elder
In the Quran
قَالَ ائْتُونِي بِأَخٍ لَكُمْ مِنْ أَبِيكُمْ
سورة يوسف
مِنْ شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ
سورة الفلق
وَزَيْتُونًا وَنَخْلًا
سورة عبس
وَأَبُونَا شَيْخٌ كَبِيرٌ
سورة القصص
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