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Laysa (Not)
By ArabicTree | August 7, 2007
Laysa is used in Arabic to mean “not.” It’s used and conjugated as a maadi verb–the same as any maadi verb. You can, then, think of laysa as the verb “was not” or “is not.” Laysa is used two ways–either by itself, or with the preposition bi (بِ). For example, you could say:
- البَطَّةُ لَيسَت كَبِيرَةً: The duck is not big
- القِطُّ لَيسَ بِكَسلانَ: The cat is not lazy
Laysa is used with nominal sentences. The mubtada in the sentence is called ismu laysa, and the khabar is called khabaru laysa. Grammatically, ismu laysa becomes marfoo, and khabaru laysa becomes mansoob. In the examples above, not that “duck” and “cat” still took dumma, but their khabars became majruwr (when used with bi) or mansoob.
The sarf for laysa is listed below:
| I (M/F) | You (F) | You (M) | She (F) | He (M) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| لَستُ | لَستِ | لَستَ | لَيسَت | لَيسَ | Single |
| لَسنَا | لَستُمَا | لَستُمَا | لَيسَتَ | لَيسَا | Dual |
| لَستَنَّ | لَستُ | لَسنَ | لَيسُو | Plural |
And Allah says in the Qur’an:
Translation: There is not anything like him, and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer. [Surah Ash-Shoora, verse 11]
Topics: Beginner, Grammar | 7 Comments »
November 6th, 2007 at 2:30 am
“Grammatically, ismu laysa becomes majruwr, and khabaru laysa becomes mansoob”
The ism laysa is marfou3 not majrour, that is, its ending is dommah.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Jazakumullahu khayran for catching that
you are correct, ismu laysa is marfoo’.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Asalamu ‘Alaykum warahmatullaahi wabarakatuh,
Masha’Allaah I love this blog! It is so beneficial, whenever I don’t understand any duroos I use this site as a reference. I was wondering if for the masdar you could do a table to highlight the masdar? If it is possible. In any case, May Allaah increase you in ‘Ilm and grant you prosperity fil dunya wal-’Aakhirah! Aameen.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Wa’alikum as-salaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
Can you explain what you mean by a table of masdar? There are two posts on masdar already; we’ve only learned one pattern (fu’ool), so I can’t really go beyond that
June 19th, 2008 at 12:51 am
I meant the various patterns but as you learnt only the fu’ool pattern then that is fine Insha’Allaah.
November 14th, 2009 at 7:04 am
why in the quranic example is ‘ka-milthli’ got a kasarah? that is not the khabar is it? im confused
November 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am
@Asiyah, that has nothing to do with laysa
ka is a particle of comparison, and it makes the thing it’s comparing to majroor.
eg. ka-mithli, like the example of
or ka-alqamari, like the moon.