Hadith 1: Actions Are Only According to Intentions

بسم اللّٰه الرحمٰن الرحيم

The Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him said:

Actions are only according to intentions and a person receives only what he has intended. Therefore, whoever's emigration is for Allah and His Messenger, his emigration is [truly] for Allah and His Messenger. And whoever's emigration is for any worldly gain or a woman he is to wed, then his emigration is for what he emigrated. (Bukhari, Muslim)

Background

This is during the period when Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him ordered his companions to emigrate from Makkah to Madinah. There was one companion who also emigrated but his intention was to marry a woman in Madinah. Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him came to know about it later and he said this hadith.

There are two narrations found about this hadith:

1. One is in Mawahib-ul-Ladunniyyah (مَوَاهِبُ اللَّدُنِّيَّة) with reference to Muntaha al-Amali lil-Suyuti (منتهى الامالى للسيوطى). According to this narration, a person emigrated and married a woman.

2. Second is in Tabarani (طبرانى). In this narration, the name of woman is mentioned as Umm Qays. Religious scholars has also mentioned her name as Qeelah but stated her kunya (nick) as Umm Qays.

Virtue of Hadith

- Imam Shafi'i and Imam Ahmad may Allah have mercy on them gave this hadith the title of ثُلْثِ علم (One-third of knowledge). The reason they described, actions (اعمال) of person is of three types:

1. Action related to heart.
2. Action related to tongue.
3. and action related to body parts.

and this hadith is related to all these three types.

- Ibn Daqiq al-'Id may Allah have mercy on him (one of the great scholar of 13th century) has said, "religious scholars gave it a title of 'ثُلْثِ الاسلام' (one-third of Islam)".

- Imam Abu Dawood may Allah may Allah have mercy on him gave it a title of نصف فقه (half of Jurisprudence).

- Religious scholars recommended authors to start their book with this hadith so the intention of a student/writer and teacher/reader can be corrected in the beginning.

- Some scholars said, "action (عمل) and verb (فعل) booth are synonym". But Imam Raghib Isfahani may Allah have mercy on him (an 11th century muslim scholar) said, "there is a difference. Verb is common; means whether something is under control of a person or not, its a verb. Whereas in action, something is definitely under his control." Molana Anwar Shah Kashmiri may Allah have mercy on him (late 19th century scholar) says, "action is in which a person have to do hardship, whereas in verb a person doesn't need to perform any hardship."

- Scholars have described intention (نيت) to be of three types:

1. Differentiating worship with habit: To differentiate a worship with habit using intention. For eg. a person standing in a prayer. If he has intended for a prayer then it will be considered his prayer, otherwise he is just standing.

2. Differentiating worship with worship: To differentiate one worship from another with intention. For eg. with intention differentiating between Zuhr and Asr prayer.

3. Differentiating God with God: To differentiate worshipping of one God from another with intention. For eg. someone is offering prayer, then it will be known from his intention whether he is praying for Allah or some other God.

- Renowned exegete of the early fourth century A.H, Ibn Jarir al-Tabari may Allah have mercy on him says, "action can be 'compulsory' and 'non-compulsory'".

1. Compulsory actions are those which requires further knowledge and initial intention, such as salat (prayer), fasting or pilgrimage. If its pre-requisites and integrals are met, then the action is considered complete.

2. Non-compulsory actions are those which are simple to perform and does not require pre-requisites and integrals such as recitation of the Quran, remembrance of Allah or teaching. Action of this type have to remain pure and free from ostentation throughout the action in order to be valid. Thus, the intention may needs to be renewal in order to yield a reward.

عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 5 - Present Tense Verb (اَلْفِعْل اَلْمُضَارِع) & Future Tense Verb (اَلْفِعْل اَلْمُسْتَقْبَل)

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

Present Tense Verb:

It describe actions or events that are ongoing. It is prefixed with ya, ta, nun, or hamzah.

Placing the word "لَا" before both active and passive voice of present tense negates it.

Active voice can be changed to passive by changing the voweling of the first letter to a dhammah ُ  and second to last letter to a fathah َ .

Based on our pattern فَعَلَ, its active voice of present tense will be يَفْعَلُ (he does) and passive voice will be يُفْعَلُ (it is being done).

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Future Tense Verb:

Present tense verb may also describe future event or action. So, يَفْعَلُ can also be translated as "he will do".

To explicitly indicate active future tense, prefix it with "س" and to explicitly indicate passive future tense, prefix it with "سَوْفَ". For eg. سَيَفْعَلُ and سَوْفَ يَفْعَلُ both are translated as "he will do".

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Note: You must memorize all these 14 paradigm.

عِلْمُ النَّحْوا (Arabic Grammar) - Lesson: 2

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

ٌاِسْم (Noun): It gives meaning on its own and is not connected to any of three tenses; present, past, future. For eg.قَلَمٌ (a pen), فَرَسٌ (a horse), بَیْتٌ (a house).

There are three types of noun:

1. جَامِدٌ (Primary Noun): It is neither derived from another word nor is any word derived from it. e.g. فَرَسٌ (horse), بِنْتٌ (girl).
2. مَصْدَرٌ (Root Noun): From which many words can be derived. e.g. ضَرْبٌ (to hit), نَصْرٌ (to help).
3. مُشْتَقٌ (Derived Noun): Which is derived from مصدر. e.g. ضَارِبٌ (hitter), مَنْصُوْرٌ (helped).

فِعْلٌ (Verb): It gives meaning on its own and is also connected to any of three tenses. For e.g. سَمِعَ (He heard), نَصَرَ (He helped), کَتَبَ (He wrote).

There are four types of verb:

1. اَلْمَاضِیْ (Past Tense): Event which occurred in the past. e.g. ضَرَبَ (He hit)
2. اَلْمُضَارِعُ (Present & Future): Event which can occur in present or future. e.g. یَضْرِبُ (He is hitting or will hit)
3. اَلْاَمْرُ (Positive Command/Imperative): Giving command to do something. e.g. اِضْرِبْ (Hit!)
4. اَلنَّھْیُ (Negative Command/Prohibitive): Negating the command. e.g. لَا تَضْرِبْ (Don't hit!)

Note: مَا is used for past tense negation and لَا is used for present/future tense negation.

حَرْفٌ (Particle): It cannot give meaning on its own. In otherwords, its dependent on other words either اِسْم or فِعْل to be meaningful. For e.g. لِ (for), وَ (by), بِ (with). To make it meaningful we can use them like کَتَبْتُ بِالْقَلَمِ (wrote with pen), وَاللَّہ (by Allah), رَجُلِ (for male)

There are two types of particle:

1. عَامِلٌ (Causative Particle): A governing word or letter (حرف) which causes اِعْرَاب to change in the word after it if it have a governing word before it or in the last letter of the word if it begins with a governing letter. e.g. زَیْدٌ فِی الْمَسْجِدِ - here فِی is عامل and it causes the اعراب on last letter of the word after it, د to have kasrah. بِسْمِ اللَّہ - here بِ is a governing حرف which causes its last letter م to have kasrah on it.
2. غَیْرُ الْعَامِلِ (Non-Causative Particle): A governing word or letter (حرف) which does not cause اعراب to change in the word. e.g. ثُمَّ (then), وَ (and).

عِلْمُ النَّحْوا (Arabic Grammar) - Lesson: 1

بسم اللہ الرحمن الر حیم

نَحْو (Nahw): Nahw or Arabic Grammar is that science which teaches us  how to join a noun, verb and particle to form a correct sentence; as well as what the اِعْرَاب (condition) of the last letter of a word should be.

Its subject matter is کَلِمَۃ (word) and کَلَام (sentence).

Objective:

• The immediate objective is to learn how to read, write and speak Arabic correctly and to avoid making mistakes in this.
• It teaches us how to put words together to form a correct sentence.
• Mid-term objective is to use our Arabic skills to understand the Quran, Hadith, Fiqh and other Islamic sciences so that we can act upon them.
• The ultimate objective through the above is to gain the pleasure of Almighty Allah.

History:

Regarding its invention some historians wrote that during the caliphate of Hazrat Umar may Allah be pleased with him one villager asked from the peoples that is there any one who can teach me the part of Holy Quran revealed on Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him? On this one man has taught him few beginning verses of Surah Tawbah and when he recited the part of the verse:

 ۚأَنَّ اللَّهَ بَرِيءٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ ۙ وَرَسُولُهُ

he pronounced the word وَرَسُولُه as وَرَسُولِه, i.e. ل with kasrah instead of dhammah and the meaning changed from "that Allah and His Messenger has disassociated from the disbelievers" to "that Allah is disassociated from the disbelievers and from His Messenger". On this the villager said:

When Allah Himself has disassociated from His Messenger then I will also disassociate myself from His Messenger.

When Hazrat Umar may Allah be pleased with him was informed about it, he called the villager and told him that the letter ل is with dhammah not kasrah, which means "Allah and His Messenger has disassociated from the disbelievers". After this he called Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali may Allah be pleased with him and ordered him to write the grammatical rules (نحو) to avoid these mistakes.

Another incident is during the time of caliphate of Hazrat Ali may Allah be pleased with him, when once he was writing some notes and suddenly Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali may Allah be pleased with him came and asked what he is writing. On this Hazrat Ali may Allah be pleased with him tells that there became a significant corruption in the Arabic language due to the conflation of Arabs and non-Arabs and that he is writing some grammatical rules. He then gave these notes on grammatical rules to Abu al-Aswad may Allah be pleased with him to write some more rules and later he then returned it back to Hazrat Ali may Allah be pleased with him. Hazrat Ali may Allah be pleased with him then said:

ما أحسن هذا النحو الذي نحوت، فمن ثمَّ سُمِّي النحو نحوا۔

Importance of Nahw:

• Hazrat Umar may Allah be pleased with him said:

تَعَلَّمُوْا النَّحْوُ کَمَا تَتَعَلَّمُوْنَ السُّنَن وَ الْفَرَائِض

Learn Nahw, like you learn Sunnah and Obligatory

• Hazrat Umar may Allah be pleased with him also said:

 تَعَلَّمُوا الْعَرَبِيَّةَ فَإِنَّهَا تُنْبِتُ الْعَقْلَ وَتَزِيدُ فِي الْمُرُوءَةِ

Learn Arabic, for it strengthens the intelligence and increases one’s noble conduct (al-murû`ah).

• Ayub al-Sakhtiyani may Allah be pleased with him said:

تَعَلَّمُوْا النَّحْوُ فَإنَّهُ جَمَالٌ لِّلْوَضِيْعِ وَتَرَكَهُ هُجْنَةٌ لِّلشَّرِيْف

Learn Nahw, for it is a grace for a cheap man and leaving it is a disgrace for a noble man.

عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 4 - Passive Past Tense (اَلْفِعْل اَلْمَاضِی اَلْمَجْهُول)

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

Passive voice is when the doer/subject is not present. In passive voice, first letter of a word becomes dhammah, second last letter becomes kasrah and last letter remain unchanged. Based on our pattern, the word "فَعَلَ" will become "فُعِلَ".

Active/Passive Voice Negation:

Placing the word "مَا" before active and passive voice negate the past tense verb. For eg. "فَعَلَ" becomes "مَا فَعَلَ" and "فُعِلَ" becomes "مَا فُعِلَ".

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عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 3 - Active Past Tense (اَلْفِعْل اَلْمَاضِی اَلْمَعْروف)

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

Past tense describe actions or events that are already occurred. In Arabic, the formation of a verb is called seegah "صیغۃ" and is based on:

Number + Gender + Person = Seegah

Here:

• Number denotes the number of persons. In English we use term Singular and Plural, but in Arabic number are of three types: Singular, Dual, Plural.
• Gender can be: Masculine, Feminine.
• Person can be:

1. 1st Person: I, Me, We
2. 2nd Person: You
3. 3rd Person: He, She, It, They

Active voice is when the doer/subject is present. For eg. ضَرَبَ زَیْدٌ (Zayd hit). In this the subject is present and it's Zayd.

The pattern "فَعَلَ" will be used as a model for the past tense verb.There are 14 paradigm:

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عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 2

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

In Arabic language we have 29 letters and 3 short vowels; kasrah ( ِ ), fathah ( َ ), dhammah ( ُ ).

Arabic words are mostly formed from 3 base letters which are enjoined together to form a meaning. Its also called "Trilateral Words" or "ثلاثی". Words formed by these 3 base letters are either noun or verb. 

ف، ع، ل are known as "model base letters" and it means "to do". You can use it to take a designated pattern and reflects its base meaning in a unique way. For eg.

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The position of model base letters are known as ف position, ع position and ل position. In the above example, in نَصَرَ we have ن at ف position, ص at ع position and ر at ل position. We have created a new word ناصر (means helper or one who helped) from it by adding ا (alif) after ن keeping the order of model base letters intact.

In English language, take the word "teacher". Adding the suffix "er" to the verb teach produces the word "teacher". This pattern describes a person who enacts the meaning of the verb (i.e., one who teaches).

Its also possible that sometimes either model base letter may fall off keeping the base meaning intact. For eg.

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The order of model base letters are important otherwise it will change its meaning. For eg.

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In the above example, exchanging the letters at ع and ل position completely changes the meaning of the word.