My understanding in that the preferred style in Arabic is that the tanwin should be placed over the final consonant, even if there is a final alif.
This was the default in the original ArabTeX, and could be turned off with \newtanwin.
Here is a minimal example (minimal_tanwin.pdf):
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{arabtex}
\vocalize
\begin{document}
\<_h.taN> $\quad$ \<m_tl_taN>
\end{document}
But with arabxetex this seems not to be the default, and instead I get
the tanwin above the final alif, as is done in Persian.
Here is an example (minimal_tanwin_xelatex.tex), which also shows how the placement can be done manually with unicode:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[novoc,fdf2noalif]{arabxetex}
\newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.4]{Amiri}
\newcommand{\A}{\textarabic}
\begin{document}
\A{_h.t"aN} $\quad$ \A{m_tl_t"aN}
\bigskip
\A{خطًا} $\quad$ \A{مثلثًا}
\end{document}
How can I get the correct Arabic behavior with arabxetex? Also, why is
the tanwin placed so high when I use unicode and Amiri? Is there a way I
can pull it down closer to the consonant?
minimal_tanwin.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
minimal_tanwin_xelatex.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
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