The more I research this topic the more confused I get. There is no doubt that the ض you would hear in most recitations is the voiced pharyngealized alveolar plosive, or in regular words, "ط but you're vibrating your vocal cords." But many people say it has a "unique makhraj." So what is going on?? How should I be pronouncing ض?
I heard someone say it's not a plosive (a consonant made by stopping and releasing all airflow), but clearly it is. Then I find that apparently ض used to be pronounced differently and it was actually a fricative. But he was still referring to today's pronunciation. And also in tajweed you do not apply qalqalah on ض which makes some sense if it was originally a fricative and now it's a plosive (it would just retain its tajweed rule), but then if that's the case then why are we not saying it the old way? All of this is just very confusing.