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The letter laam لام
is an L. Unlike in some dialects of English,
where there are "dark" ells
as that in "nail"
and "clear" ells as that in "lane", all* 
Arabic
ells are clear.
Avoid mistaking the Arabic L for the R or the D.
We first draw a
#alif ألف stroke, but longer (three squares), and
then add a nuwn نون tail.
However, if some other letter comes after the laam,
we just draw a two-square high stroke, exactly like
the #alif ألف stroke, but joining it
to the next letter.
Note that a true alif is never
joined to the next letter, so there's
no risk of confusing a laam لام with a #alif ألف.
See the cheatsheet for more details.
A letter #alif ألف followed
by a laam لام would look like this, if we were to apply the
joining rules explained in this chapter and in chapter
#alif ألف. But doing so would be wrong, not to mention
downright ugly.
Instead, the
sequence laam + alif
must always be written like this. This
thingy (well, this ligature,
as a typographer would say) is called a laam #alif لام ألف.
Stroke 2 is a horizontal tail, which takes off, and lies on the baseline. It is not a baa# باء's tail nor a laam لام's tail.
Draw it one square long, or one square and a half.
The laam 'alif is a non-joining letter.
The laam #alif لام ألف is the only letter-group that must always be combined a special way. Many other letter-groups may be combined, but only if you think they look better that way.
You can see two laam alifs in this sentence.
![[ laa ilaaha illa llaaha mu_hammadun rasuwlu llaah ]](images/laailaaha.gif "[ laa ilaaha illa llaaha mu_hammadun rasuwlu llaah ]")
The first one is the word laa لا (which means "there's no")
and the second is part of the word #illaa إلا ("except", "but").
The sentence is called #a(sh)(sh)ahaadah أششهادة, means "there's no god but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God", and is the holiest word of Islam. So please don't copy it (not by hand, and not by printer). Copying it not only would be politically incorrect, but if Muslims where to see you playing with that, they would get very, very angry (See #al#islaam ألئسلام for details). If you happen to be today in the mood for something politically incorrect, please try something like this, which won't offend Muslims so much. You don't want any angry Muslims around you.
Most of the time, the laam alif is pronunced laa لا,
but there are exceptions. This word is
la#aali# لآلئ ("some pearls"). The
alif of this laam alif is a #alif maddah ألف مدة,
that's why this laam #alif لام ألف is read la#aa لآ.
Sometimes, the laam alif is an alif
plus an #alif hamzah ألف همزة,
and will be pronounced
l# لء ó la# لء, maybe li# لئ. As in
li#ajli- لئجل "because of", written laamalif-hamzah plus ج
plus ل, and with a
hamzah sign on the laamalif's second stroke.
There're many ways to write the laam alif. The above is not the most usual nor the most beautiful, but it's probably the easiest.
In print, the most usual shape of the laamalif is this one.
Don't try to write this with a marker.
Copyright (c) 2001-2009
Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/net/arabe/l.en.html
Last revised: 2008-04-06
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