Al-Haafez Abu Amr Al-Dani (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
"Tajweed (reciting with proper pronunciation) is not by chewing the tongue, nor by flattening or curving the mouth/jaw, nor by echoing the voice, nor by stretching the mushaddad (the letters with shaddah), nor by shortening the Madd (elongation of vowels), nor by humming the ghunah (the nasal sound of م and ن), nor by restricting the letter ر; such recitations disgust the listener, and they are not pleasing to the hearts and ears," [An-Nashr Vol.1 Pg 211-213].
Tajweed is the easy, lovely, beautiful and sweet, soft recitation that doesn't have any chewing, or arbitrariness, or exaggeration. The recitation that is not fake and unreal, or completely beyond the natural flow of the speech of the Arabs, and the eloquent flow of the different types of acceptable recitation.
There is no doubt that an easy, beautiful, and sweet recitation incites the memorizer to go on repeating the verses with ease and comfort feeling very happy. Whereas exaggeration in recitation leads to difficulty in reciting and stumbling in repetition, which results in boredom and a loss of desire to continue the memorization.
Some examples of cases of exaggeration include exaggeration in تفخيم (Aggrandizement), which leads to rounding the lips, making them look like you are pronouncing و. Another example is exaggerating in ترقيق (Attenuating), which leads to making the letter softer than it is. This exaggeration is most obvious when pronouncing a word that contains both letters of تفخيم and ترقيق like the word مَخْمَصَةٌ or the word ٌمَرَض. We find some beginners overextending the letters in order to pronounce the ترقيق but this leads to an addition of madd to the letter.
To avoid issues such as these errors in tajweed, the Prophet Muhammad (May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him) pointed out the importance of learning correctly when he said:
"Whoever would like to recite the Quran as fresh as it was revealed, then he should recite it like Ibn Umm Abd (meaning Abdullah Ibn Mas'ood)," [Ibn Majah/135].
The source and main material used in preparing the content of this blog is the book, Ways of teaching the noble Qur'aan and memorizing it by Abu Abdrahman, Jamal ibn Ibrahim AlQirsh (طرائق تدريس القرآن الكريم وحفظه).