1. Ismul Istifhaam: Also known as “the maa of asking.” This is the easiest, and probably the first thing to learn–as in:
   ما هاذا؟

   Which means “what is this?” (The maa is the part that makes it a question.)

2. Maa-u-Nahiy: Also known as “the maa of negating.” This is what you use to negate maadi verbs; for example, if you wanted to say “I didn’t go to the masjid,” you would say:
   ما ذَهَبتُ ألى المَسجِدِ

   Which means “I didn’t go to the masjid.” The maa here is a negation; without it, the sentence means “I went to the masjid.”

3. The Maa of Alladhiy: This maa has virtually the same meaning as “alladhiy,” which means “that” or “which” or “the one that/which.” For example, the sentence:
   رَأيتُ ما فَعَلتَ

   Means “I saw what you did.” Notice here the maa means “what” or “the thing that.” And also notice, you could’ve replaced it with alladhiy, and it would still carry the exact same meaning.

And those are the three maas! In fact, Arabic has over 15 different meanings of “maa“–so don’t think you know it all! But of course, a gradual process of learning the meanings one by one will eventually lead to you knowing them all, what they mean, where and how to use them, and how to decipher which maa you’re looking at when you’re reading.

May Allah increase us in knowledge of this great language and help us use it for His sake, ameen yaa Rabbi!

Enter Mamnoo’ Min As-Sarf (مَمنُوعٌ مِن السَرفِ). Literally, it means something like “not on the pattern.” It refers to a certain class of nouns that deviate from this norm–they show majruwr case with fatha instead of kasra.

Let’s look at an example. If you wanted to say “I got this from Muhammad,” you’d say: أخَدتُ هاذا مِن مُحَمَّدٍ

But, if you wanted to say “I got this from ‘Uthmaan,” you’d say: أخَدتُ هاذا مِن عُثمانَ!

Min is harf-ul-jarr; ‘Uthmaan is majruwr; but since it’s mamnoo’ min as-sarf, it shows it with fatha instead of kasra!

Similarly, if you wanted to say “this is Zaynab’s book,” you would say: هاذا كِتابُ زَينَبَ (notice it’s Zaynaba, not Zaynabi). Again, Zaynab is a word that’s mamnoo min as-sarf.

Some common words and names you might know that are mamnoo’ min as-sarf include:

• Colours: such as abyadu, ahmeru, azraqu, etc. and also the feminine forms: baydaa’u, hamraa’u, zarqaa’u, etc.
• Makkah (مَكَّة)
• Common Names: such as ‘Uthmaan, Ahmed, Ishaaq, Ya’qoob, etc. (including the names of many prophets of Islam (عليهُم السَلام)
• Some countries: Pakistan (بَكِستان), and others.

This post is just an introduction to this topic. Insha’Allah in the near future, we’ll discuss why these particular words, and not others, are mamnoo’ min as-sarf–and what classes or categories of words are mamnoo’ min as-sarf.

Wallahu ta’ala ‘alim.

But can a verb take more than one maf’ool?

The answer is yes. Although it’s rare in Arabic, there are some verbs that take more than one maf’ool (recipient of the verb). An example of this is the verb ‘allama (عَلَّمَ). ‘Allama, which means “to teach,” takes two maf’ool bihi–a who and a what.

Allah (SWT) says in Surah Baqarah, verse 31:

Translation: And He (Allah) taught Adam the names of all things … [Surah Baqarah, verse 31]

Here, we see this verb in action. Who is the faa’il? It’s a dameer mustateer, a hidden huwa. What are the two maf’ool bihi? One is Adam (which is mansoob), and one is asmaa’a (which is also mansoob). Kullahaa is just a description of asmaa’a.

Notice, there’s nothing unusual here. The faa’il is a regular faa’il; the maf’ools here are normal, albeit there are two of them. Both are mansoob, both show it with fatha, as you would expect.

What are some other verbs that take two (or more!) maf’ools? Share them insha’Allah in the comments!

In any case, one easy way to learn is to listen to this nasheed. Just listen to it a few times (maybe 20+) until you memorize it. The rest is easy Alhamdulillah, the pronounciation is clear, and perfect (no accented mistakes).

The alphabet order is: Alif, baa, taa, thaa, jeem, 7aa, khaa; daal, dhal raa, zaa, seen, sheen, saad; daad, taw, thaw, ‘ayn, ghayn, faa; qaaf, kaaf, laam, meem, noon, ha, waw, yaa.

The good thing about the nasheed is the way it breaks it up, it makes it easier to memorize. Also, note the following general rules:

1. If there are two letters that are the same, except one has a dot, and one doesn’t, the non-dotted version is first.
2. Dots below the letter come before dots in the middle, which come before dots on top
3. Less dots come before more dots

And don’t be confused by haa, noon, kaaf, faa, and meem–these come late in the Arabic alphabet, but early in the English one.

Wallahu ‘alim.

How can these verbs change their case? Enter lam-ut-ta’leel, the Lam of Explaining. When you apply lam-ut-ta’leel, it changes the verb to mansoob.

For example, if you’re asked the question:

Say you went to get a drink of water. How do you express this? You can reply with:

You replied with: I went to drink water. That lam that’s applied to the verb ashrabu is lam-ut-ta’leel–it changes the verb from ashrabu to ashraba.

And this is not the same as the harf-ul-jarr “li“–not at all. That’s a harf (particle) that causes a NOUN to become MAJROOR; lam-ut-ta’leel causes a VERB to become MANSOOB. Big difference. Don’t get confused!

Or say you went to recite some Qur’an. You can say:

Which you can translate as “I went to recite Qur’an.”

Some of you might notice the translation is a bit imprecise; in fact, it’s almost like saying (for the first example):

Which is the masdar–”I went for the drinking of water.” Well, you can actually say that. Why? The grammarians say that lam-ut-ta’leel actually has a hidden particle “an” (أن), and THIS is what’s causing the verb to be mansoob–the same particle that’s used with raada/yureedu (and other verbs)!

What’s more, they say it’s wajib to keep this particle hidden (grammatically speaking)! Subhanallah!

And that is lam-ut-ta’leel–the lam of explaining. It makes mudaari‘ verbs mansoob (because of the hidden particle “in”), and can be replaced with the masdar.

Wallahu ‘alim.

In the dual forms, the faa’il is the alif–which is called Alif-ul-Uthayn (الِفُ الأثَينِ).

So in maadi, the alif is evident in humaa and antumaa, like so:

In mudaari‘, the alif is evident in all the duals–humaa and antumaa, masculine and feminine:

And that’s it! We’re not going into much more detail other than this; just remember that you don’t want to add a second faa’il in the form of some marfoo‘ verbs.

Wallahu ‘alim.

Kam means “how much” or “how many,” depending on the context. The word immediately after kam–the thing you’re asking about–is always singular and mansoob.

Here are some examples:

How many brothers do you have? Here, akhan is singular and mansoob. Note that the English is plural–brothers–even though the Arabic is singular–brother.

How much for this watch? Here, kam means “how much,” not “how many.” Though, commonly, people get lazy and just say “kam haadha?” for something they want to buy.

How many cats are eating the fish? Qittah (cats, here) is singular and mansoob, even though the word qittah is translated into English as “cats.”

And that’s kam, in a nutshell!

For example, if someone says to you:

Does this mean “I am drinking tea” or “I will drink tea”? If you can see the person, no problem!–you can tell if they’re drinking tea or not right now. But what if you read a sentence like this in a book?

The answer is context; the same way Arabs (meaning people who speak and understand Arabic) understand without vowels, they understand tense by context. Subhanallah! What about the rest of us?

As it turns out, you can explicitly specify that the verb is present- or future-tense. Let’s go by example. Our original sentence was:

If we want to make it present-tense, we say:

The addition of al-aana (الانَ) means “now”; so you can translate this sentence as: “I am drinking tea right now.” Which makes it present-tense! Notice you could NOT say “I will drink tea right now”–it doesn’t make sense! So al-aana removes the ambiguity and makes it present-tense.

What about future tense? There are two ways you can achieve this:

1. By the addition of the letter seen:
   سَأَشرُبُ الشَايَ

   The addition of seen makes it future tense; so you can translate as “I will drink tea.”

2. By the addition of the word sawfa:
   سَوفَ أَشرُبُ الشَايَ

   The addition of sawfa makes it future tense; so you can translate as “I will drink tea.”

Both are equivalent, seen and sawfa–there’s no difference in the meaning. Also, unlike al-aana, you do not explicitly translate the seen or sawfa into a word (at least, in English).

To summarize: Mudaari‘ verbs can be present-tense or future tense; you can explicitly specify it as present-tense (by adding al-aana) or future-tense (by adding seen or sawfa).

Wallahu ‘alim.

In Arabic, words on the pattern of faa’il (فاعل) denote a doer of an action. Here are some common words you probably know on the pattern of faa’il:

• طالِب Taalib: student
• عالِم ‘Aalim: scholar. (’Allama means to teach; ‘alima to learn)
• حاكِم Haakim: judge
• صادِق Saadiq: friend. The root word is sadaqa, which means to be truthful; from an Arabic language perspective, friends are the ones who tell you the truth!

Here are some words from the Qur’an and Sunnah on the pattern of faa’il:

• كافِر Kaafir: disbeliever, the one who does kafara (disbelief)
• كاذِب Kaathib: liar (the one who does kathaba)
• مالِك Maalik: king
• راحِم Raahim: merciful person (the one who does rahmah)

Here are some names of Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) on the pattern of faa’il:

• الخالِق Al-Khaaliq: The Creator, the one who creates out of nothing (the one who does khalaqa)
• الهادى Al-Haadiy: the one who guides; The Guide
• البارى Al-Baariy: the one who forms, who evolves, life

Wallahu ‘alim. For more details on the intricate meanings of Allah’s names, you can try the GodNames.org sitemap (it has a list of names). You can also try Ilm Fruits, they have details on a few names (Al-Ghaffaar, Al-Ghafuwr, Al-Haleem, and Al-Qahhar).

Another combination are the two names Amr (عَمَر) and ‘Umar (عُمَر). Notice that when you take the dots and tashkeel away, the two names look exactly the same! And this is a problem, because the Arabs didn’t have taskheel and dots before.

So how do they resolve this? The same way as mi’atun and minhu: they add an extra letter. So ‘Amr is written like so:

The extra waw is not pronounced–it simply exists to distinguish the two names.

And why is it still there today? Allahu ‘alim, Arabs don’t put taskheel except when necessary. So the majority of written Arabic has no tashkeel in it; so these things are still necessary.