Arabic Articles, Definite and Indefinite

                                                                 بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس السابع

As-salam-alai-kum, can you guess the chapter number ?  Else please go back and count the chapters posted. Also memorise the numbers. It will help while we learn the arabic numerals insha-allah.

I got a WhatsApp message below:

“An IS guy stopped a christian couple near border and asked ‘are you muslim’ ? christian guy got scared and said yes!.  IS guy asked him to tell any Quran ayah. The guy started reciting arabic bible. The IS guy allowed him to go. The girl asked her husband, why you lied to him. He said i took chance as many muslims don’t know quran as they don’t know arabic”.

The above incident may or may not be true.  But what is true is that many muslims indeed don’t know arabic. And every arabic is not quran.  Think over !! where you want to be ? Its never too late.  Just continue your studies insha-allah Allah (swt) will guide us.

Till now examples were from real life.  Try to translate below ayaats from quran as ultimately that should be our goal to learn arabic. Below are application of whatever we have studied before. If unable to translate then look in any translations.

أَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ - [2:132]

أَنتَ التَّوَّابُ - [2:128]

وَأَنتُمْ ظَالِمُونَ - [2:92]

هِيَ بَيْضَاءُ - [7:108]

ذَٰلِكَ هُوَ الْفَضْلُ الْكَبِيرُ - [42:22]

هَٰذَا حَلَالٌ وَهَٰذَا حَرَامٌ - [16:116]

هَٰذَا لِسَانٌ عَرَبِيٌّ - [16:103]

تِلْكَ الدَّارُ الْآخِرَةُ - [28:83]

أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ - [8:74]

هَٰؤُلَاءِ ..قَلِيلُونَ - [26:54]

Some new words to learn from above examples. Some of them you might have guessed it. If not then just memorise it. after all new language means many new words into our head.

Definite and Indefinite:

In english by adding “The” to a noun, it becomes definite. i.e. “THE Quran”.

In arabic By adding (ال) al- to an indefinite noun, you make it definite.

Example:  indefinite (كِتابٌ) - (book) becomes (الكِتابُ). The book.   

Notice (بُ) instead (بٌ) in the noun i.e Al-kitabu is correct and Al-kitabun is wrong.  Also the same goes for indefinite. Kitabun is correct and kitabu is wrong.

More examples:

The Book	الكِتابُ	كِتابٌ	Book
The Quran	ألقُرانُ	قُرانٌ	Quran
The Lesson	ألدَّرسُ	دَرسٌ	Lesson
The Religion	ألدِّينُ	دِينٌ	Religion
The House	البَيتُ	بَيتٌ	House

Solar Letters and Lunar Letters :

ألحُرُفُ الشَمسِييَّةُ أ'لحُرُفَ القَمَرِيَّةٌ

BTW, have you pronounced (ألدَّرسُ) as (AL-darasu) ? Wrong !!

When (ال) is defined to a noun beginning with a Solar Letter the (ل) of (ال) is assimilated to the Solar letter.

Example: (الشمسية) is pronounced (Ash-shamsu).  And not (AL -shamsu). Thats why we say Ar-rehman  and not  AL-rehman.

Therefore (ألدَّرسُ) is pronounced as (Ad-darasu)

No such assimilation takes place with Lunar letters.

Example: (القَمَرِيَّةٌ) is pronounced as (Al-qamaru).  And not (aq-qamaru)

Tip to find the solar letter :

In the articulation of Solar letters, the tip of the blade of the tongue is involved as in T, N, R, S, D.

Below arabic letters are all solar as the tips of tongue is involved. So you don’t pronounce (AL) if the noun is definite.

ت, ث, د, ذ, ر, ز, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ل, ن

Example: اللَّحمُ (Meat), النَّجمُ (Star)

See how this simple grammar teaches us to read quran in correct way. The first thing that is thought in quran classes after arabic letters is understanding of solar letters and lunar letters. and pronouncing these words correctly. We just didn’t knew that we were learning solar and lunar letters. right!!

Elision of (ال)

When the word (ال) begins with a vowel, the ‘A’ of ‘Al’ is dropped and the sound is elided. In case of ‘This’.

Example:

الجَنَّةُ - The paradise.    when added with hadhihi it becomes

هَذِهِ الجَنَّةُ - “This is the paradise” pronounced as (Hadhihi-l-jannah)  and not (hadithi- AL- jannah).

Thats why we say  Bismillahir-rehmanir-rahim.  The (AL) is elided. We don’t say Bismillah - Ar`rehman - Ar`rahim.

More arabic words (كلام)

To learn more new words it is good to have mind map of related words. Example, when you think of a room (غرفة) you should think of many items in the room.Take a look at below picture of a غرفة and learn new words.

  

Just memorise the كلام in the picture, insha-allah the plurals of the above words (كلام) will be given at the end of this chapter.

Exercise:  try to look around items you see in your room (غرفة) everyday. Get their arabic كلام and memorise them.  Though this may not be helpful for learning quran but it does for basic arabic speaking at home.

Lets have some fun learning basic vocabulary by answering “yes” or “no” question format.

In arabic “yes” means “نعم” (na`aam)  and “no” means “لا” (La).  So from the below table just look at the word of picture and answer the questions asked with “نعم” / “لا”.

CAT	أهَـٰذَا كَلبٌ؟ - Is this a dog? لا, هَـٰذَا قِطٌ - No, this is cat
أهَـٰذَا بَيتٌ؟ - Is this a house?
	أهَـٰذَا مِفتاحٌ؟ - Is this a key?
أهَـٰذَا قَمِيصٌ؟ - Is this shirt?

(هَل) also can be used to question (Is this/that).  and also (أ)

	هَل هَـٰذَا نَهرٌ؟ - Is this river?
هَل ذَلِكَ سَرِيرُ؟ - Is that a bed?

Now finally the list of the words we saw in the picture.  Try to translate them in english.

(Note:  generally arabic writing omits dhamma ,fatha, etc. (i.e. ـــَ   ـــِ  ـــُ). So you have to familiarise the words without them.

نجم  - نجوم

كرسي  -  كراسي

طاولة   - طاولات

القلم   -  الأقلام

خزانة - خزانات

باب  -  الأبواب

مفتاح - مفاتيح

نافذة   - النوافذ

الكتاب - الكتب

Summary:

Alhamdulillah we learnt in this chapter -

1. Arabic definite and indefinite nouns.  example (Al-kitabu  and kitabun)
2. Solar and lunar letters.   ex. (Ar-rehman.  and Al-qamar)
3. Elision of (AL).  ex. (Bismillahi-rehamn)
4. new words related to a room. (غرفة)
5. Yes / no . “نعم” / “لا”

Arabic demonstrative pronouns dual and plural

                                                      بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس السادس

In the previous chapter alhamdulillah we learned about the demonstrative pronouns. [ذَ‌ٰلِكَ] means “that” and [هَـٰذَا] means “this”.  Now read this ayah,

بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الم . ذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ ۛ فِيهِ....

familiar ?? chapter 2:1  When you see the translation mostly you will find it translated as this.

[1. Alif, Lam, Meem. 2. This is the Book about which there is no doubt . . . .   ]

Now with basic understanding of Arabic many including me will have doubt that when its written [ذَ‌ٰلِكَ] in the ayah then why its translated as “this book” instead or “that book”.

I am not an Arabic scholar or a mufassir to answer this but i am sure that there should be some  hikmah behind this. I found 2 answers on this.

1. the 'dhalika' refers to the name of the surah, "Alif Lam Meem" per Ghamidi. To quote Shehzad Saleem :

      

   

The demonstrative pronoun ‘ذَ‌ٰلِكَ’ in ‘ذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ’ refers to the name of the sūrah mentioned in the previous verse. It is common in Arabic to refer to entities mentioned previously by demonstrative pronouns as ‘ذَلِكَ’ and ‘تِلْكَ’. In the Qur’ān, examples of this usage can be seen in the following verses: تِلْكَ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ نَتْلُوهَا عَلَيْكَ بِالْحَقِّ وَإِنَّكَ لَمِنْ الْمُرْسَلِينَ تِلْكَ الرُّسُلُ فَضَّلْنَا بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَى (٢: ٢٥٢)

    2.When the Quran was being revealed, it was revealed verbally, and not in a book form. And when talks about something which is not present amongst them but will come into formation later, in the Arabic language that thing cannot be called 'haza' (this), but rather has to be called 'dhalika' (that)!

         The correct literal translation of 'dhalikal kitaab' would indeed be 'that Book'; and since the Book referred to in the Aayah is, without an iota of a doubt, the Holy Quran, the eminent translators have, in trying to stay closest to the meaning of the Holy Quran have translated it 'this Book', ie: the Glorious Quran.

Asking questions is not wrong in Islam, What is discouraged in Islam is if one asks questions for the sake of asking, or arguing to ridicule the Truth with absolutely no intention of obeying or following when the Truth is made clear to them, etc. But if one asks questions to clarify and seek knowledge so that one may better follow the deen; such seeking of the Knowledge of Truth is absolutely encouraged in Islam.

Coming back to the course… Please memorize the below table for Arabic demonstrative pronouns. this is important as we have learned other tables in previous chapters.

read it like this

Hadh`a, Hadh`ani, ha`ulaaee . . .  . . hadh`ihi, hataani, ha`ulaaee

(This - These)

Plural	Dual	Singular
هَـٰؤُلَآءِ These	هَـٰذَانِ These two	هَـٰذَا This	← 1 Masculine
هَـٰؤُلَآءِ These	هَـٰتانِ These two	هَـٰذِهِ This	← 2 Feminine

(That - Those)

Read below like this

Dhalika, dhanika, ulaaika . . . . .  thilka, tanika, ulaaika.

Plural	Dual	Singular
أُولاءِكَ Those	ذانِكَ Those two	ذَ‌ٰلِكَ That	← 1 Masculine
أُولاءِكَ Those	تانِكَ Those two	تِلكَ That	← 2 Feminine

Now lets put these above tables into practice, and learn some more basic arabic sentences.

In chapter 3 you have learned how to make the dual and plural of some words. can you guess the meaning of   [ هَذَا مُدَرِّسٌ]

You should know how to make the plural of [مُدَرِّسٌ].   So the simple sentence using demonstrative pronouns for plural form would be  “these teachers”. i.e.

                                [Ha`ulaaee mudarisoon]    . . . .  . . . . .  .. . . . . [ هَؤُلاءِ مُدَرِّسُونَ]

If you are good at the tables like above, then you will immediately realize that we have to use plural form of “this”  which would be [هَؤُلاءِ]

Now lets practice some of it. You’ll have to translate from Arabic to English and English to Arabic.  use the above table for demonstrative pronoun. and  If you are unable to make dual / plural form for the people. please read chapter 3 again.

singular :    هَذِهِ طَالِبَةٌ   [this is a female student] dual       :   هَـٰتانِ طَالِبَتان plural     :   هَؤُلاءِ طَالِبَاتٌ

singular :  هَذَا مُهَنْدِسٌ dual       :  these two are engineers plural     :  those are engineers

singular  : تِلكَ مُدَرِّسَةٌ dual        : those two are female teachers plural      : those are female teachers

singular   :  ذَ‌ٰلِكَ فَلاحٌ dual         : those two are farmers plural       : those are farmers

singular   :  That is a female colleague dual         :  تانِكَ  زَمِيلَتان plural       :   those are female /collegues

How do you translate “this is a book” ?

Now how would you tell “these are two books” ?

                                             هَـٰذَانِ كتابانِ

Ok …. now translate “these are books”  i.e plural form of above.

:

:

i am sure  you will translate it as unless you already know some Arabic.

                 [هَؤُلاءِ كِتابون]

But this is wrong.  In English if you want to make plural its simple.  Just add ‘s’ at the end.  Book - books. table - tables.  except for few exceptions like man - men.   

Already we have learned 2 ways of making plural in Arabic:

1. Sound masculine plural :    [مُدَرِّسٌ / مُدَرِّسُونَ]

         this can be used only with some words that refer to male people.

1. Sound feminine plural : [طَالِبَةٌ / طَالِبَاتٌ]

          this can be used only with most words that refer to female people and some feminine words like  [سيارة / سيارات] means [ car / cars ]

However, many Arabic words cannot be made plural in either of these ways. They are made plural by following different patterns.

Patterns of Plurals

قَلَمٌ ــ أَقلَامٌ Pens - Pen	بُيُوتٌ ــ بَيتٌ House - Houses
Pattern - 1	Pattern - 2
وَلَدٌ ــ أولَادٌ Boys - Boy	بُنُوك ــ بَنكُ Bank - Banks

These plural patterns are known as broken plural because the word is ‘Broken apart’  and different long and short vowels are arranged around the letters.

Notice in pattern 1: alif is added at 1st and after 2nd letter of noun.  

example 3 letters of [ ق ل م ] is changed to [ ا ق لا م ]  

And in pattern 2 : [ ب ي ت ] is changed to [ بُ ي و ت ]

Examples:

Singular	Plural
لَون - Colour	ألوان - Colours
طَبَقَ - Plate	أطبَاقٌ - Plates
كُوب - Cup	أكواب - Cups
قَلبٌ - Heart	قُولوب - Hearts
سَيف - Sword	سُيُوف - Swords

Arabic is indeed is very logical language.its easy to apply some logic to most of Arabic grammar. But for making plural  only experience allows you to predict from the singular of the noun what the broken plural form is likely to be. At the outset it is impossible to make such predictions

More patterns below :

Just focus on how the format of plural is made. many of the plural fall into these few patterns. Don’t worry if you are not able to get plural for the first time. Advice is to learn the plural as you learn new words. In Arabic dictionary the plural form will be mentioned next to the word itself.

Singular	Plural
عَبدٌ - Servant	عِبَادٌ - Servants
قرنٌ - Horn	قُرونٌ - Horns
فاكِهَة - Fruit	فَواكِهٌ - Fruits
رَجُلٌ - Man	رِجالٌ - Men
قَريَة - Village	قَريَ - Villages
إمرَاةٌ - A woman	نِسَاءٌ - Women
بِنتٌ - Girl	بَنَاتٌ - Girls
اِسمٌ - Name	أَسمَاءٌ - Names

The final thing pending in this chapter is that modern standard Arabic treats all non-human plurals as feminine singular.  There is no exception to this.

Example, its wrong for “these are swords” in Arabic:

     هَؤُلاءِ سُيُوف

since it has to be feminine singular, correct way is

هَذِهِ سُيُوف

Although [هَؤُلاءِ] is plural of [هَذِهِ / هَذَا], it is only used when talking about people. Arabic divides plural into

1. humans.
2. non-humans.

In other words you should use the same words with non-human plural as you do with a feminine singular word.  example :

: these are swords:  هَذِهِ سُيُوف

: where are my pens ?  they are on the table : use هي [feminine singular]

أين أقْلامِي ؟  هي علي المائدة .               

We have not learned about preposition { on /  علي } yet. Insha-allah its going to come in coming chapters.

So the summary about what we have learnt is:

1. demonstrative pronouns  for dual and plural.
2. dual and plural for people / human.
3. dual and plural of non-humans.
4. some new Arabic nouns. Please memorize them.