Arabic Small High Sad

It lets you pause for breath but favors continuing. In South Asian Qur’anic layout, it gives a reciter permission to breathe even when the phrase is unfinished. It is a cue for recitation, not another sound in the word.

The practice of marking pauses in Qur’anic manuscripts predates this exact small high ṣād. A 2026 study identifies a circular pause sign in a Qur’anic manuscript probably copied in the late first Islamic century; that sign is not ࣕ, so the manuscript does not date this glyph.

The letter-based pause system is associated with al-Sajāwandī, a scholar who classified stops by their effect on a passage’s meaning. Pakistani Qur’anic notation includes this high form; specialized Indo-Pak mushafs, or printed Qur’ans, also document a related low form.

Why does it appear over an Urdu name?

Over a revered name, it marks the religious honorific “salla.” A 2000 proposal for Urdu writing standards lists this small-high ṣād among marks placed above names to indicate religious standing. This is a different use from the recitation cue inside a Qur’anic line.

Why does the mark look wrong when typed?

Place it after the Arabic character it annotates. ࣕ is a combining mark: it attaches to a preceding character instead of taking a space of its own. A bare mark may show a dotted circle for the missing base; the circle is not part of ࣕ.

Arabic fonts can stack neighboring marks differently. If a Qur’anic edition leaves this cue out, it may use a different pause inventory; follow that edition’s notation rather than adding the mark to ordinary Arabic text.