A Message of Peace — Page v
v the muscles of the throat to be in the gargling position whilst pronouncing it. q , a deep guttural k sound. ’ , a sort of catch in the voice. Short vowels are represented by ‘ a’ for (like ‘u’ in ‘ bud’ ); ‘ i’ for (like ‘ i’ in ‘ bid’ ); ‘ u’ for (like ‘ oo’ in ‘wood’ ); the long vowels by ‘ a’ for or (like ‘ a’ in ‘ father’ ); ‘i’ for or (like ‘ ee’ in ‘deep’ ); ‘ ai’ for (like ‘ i’ in ‘ site’ ); ‘ u’ for (like ‘ oo’ in ‘ root’ ): ‘ au’ for, (resembling ‘ ou’ in ‘ sound’ ). Please note that in transliterated words the letter ‘ e’ is to be pronounced as in ‘prey’ which rhymes with ‘ day ’; however the pronunciation is flat without the element of English diph- thong. If in Urdu and Persian words, letter ‘e’ is lengthened a bit more it is transliterated as ‘ei’ , to be pronounced as ‘ ei’ in ‘ feign’ without the element of diphthong; thus is translit- erated as ‘ Kei’. The consonants not included in the above list have the same phonetic value as in the principal languages of Europe. The following abbreviations have been used. Readers are urged to recite the full salutations: sa s al-lall a hu ‘alaihi wa sallam , meaning ‘may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him’ is written after the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa. as ‘alaihis sal a m , meaning ‘peace be upon him’ is written after the names of Prophets other than the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa.