Hello Susu, Alif has two rôles: it can be a letter of prolongation (to make the long "a" after fatHa, written or unwritten) and it can be a bearer for hamza (hamza often, though not always, has to be written above or below alif, above waw or above ya' with no dots). Hamza can be thought of as a letter, even though it is not traditionally included in the alphabet. It is pronounced as a glottal stop. The difficulty with writing hamza lies in the fact, as I mentioned above, it is often written in conjunction with another letter. In fact, in some cases, standard orthography is not settled on this point and you will find, for example مسؤول in some publications and مسئول in others. Hope this helps, Alvin

Some people mix the two Alif and Hamza but they are different. يخلط البعض بين الهمزة والألف, وبين الإثنين فرق Hamza is different in that it takes many forms -in Arabic harakat-. تختلف الهمزة عن الألف في أنها تقبل الحركات Hamza can be at the begging, middle or end of a word الهمزة قد تأتي في أول الكلمة أو وسطها أو آخرها But alif can’t be at the begging بينما لا تأتي الألف في أولها Because it’s a silent letter and the begging of a word must not be لأنها لا تكون إلا ساكنة وأول الكلمة لا يكون إلا متحركًا Hamza: Anzal, Ya’akol, Sama’a الهمزة : أنزل, يأكل, سماء Alif: Nam, Sa’a الألف : نام, سعى The silent alif is called soft alif تُسمى الألف التي لا تقبل الحركة بالألف اللينة But the hamza is called hard alif في حين تُسمى الهمزة التي تقبل الحركات بالألف اليابسة Sebawaih a famous Arabic scientist consider the Arabic letters to be 29 سيبويه عالم لغة عربية شهير أعتبر حروف العربية 29 And that alif and hamza are two different letters و أن الهمزة و الألف حرفان مختلفان I hope that this well shed some light on the difference أرجوا أن يكون هذا يوضح الفرق

First i would like to thank you Mr.Susu for this important question.alif and hamaze are different letters; we use al-hamza at the begining of words and at the middle of the words unlike alif which is used at the middle and at the end of words.The second point ,al-hamza takes "حركات ظاهرة " like "الكسرة و الفتحة و الضمة " but al alif takes "حركات مقدرة " that is the reason that hamaze has more forms than alif . The next point is "همزتا القطع و الوصل" ,try to know more about it.Good luck and good question.

Here is a very good explanation. This is another Aziza :)) http://www.transparent.com/arabic/alif-and-hamza/ http://www.transparent.com/arabic/alif-and-hamza-part-2/

alif and hamaze Hrfan independent from each other, hamaze guttural, and graduated from Al-alif, hamaze accept the characters movements, while the mill does not accept any, hamaze located on the first floor in the middle and in the most recent, while the mill is not only the center of the floor or the latest, and the provisions are expressed phenomenon hamaze, while it is impossible for the ability of the alif. In short, the hamaze is written based on the movement or the movement of the letter, which was accepted, whichever is stronger is controlled in the trades on which they are written.