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.

(Click to enlarge)

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

عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 1

بسم اللّہ الرحمن الرحیم

صَرْف : صَرْف or Arabic morphology is the branch of linguistics and one of the major components of grammar that studies word structures and identification (types) of word. It also tells about conjugation of verbs.

There are considered to be 4 different grammarians according to different sources who first wrote about Arabic morphology:

1. Hazrat Ali R.A
2. Hazrat Ma’az Bin Muslim Harvi R.A
3. Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa R.A
4. Hazrat Abu Usman Bakr Maazni R.A

The image below presents the map of Arabic language and we will study this map in detail today. In Arabic morphology, only Noun and Verb will be discussed in detail, because in Morphology we study about identification of words and conjugation of verbs. Rest about joining different words to create a complete sentence either by using حَرْف (particle) is part of نَحْو (Nahw - Arabic Grammar) which we will study in Nahw category.

- لَفَظ Articulation: Anything which a person speak or comes out of the mouth. In otherwords, words that are produced by the tongue is called articulation. It is of 2 types:

1. مَوْضُوْع (Meaningful): Words which gives or are clear in meaning, like کِتَابٌ (a book).
2. مُھْمَل (Meaningless): Words which cannot give any meaning, like بیبسی (Pepsi) which is just a brand name (without any meaning of itself) but was unknown before it’s advent.

- مَوْضُوْع is of two types:

1. مُفْرَد (Single): One word or a single meaningful word. For e.g. بَیْتٌ (a house), حَامِدٌ (Hamid, name of a person)
2. مُرَکَّب (Compound): When more than one words are put together to give meaningful phrase. e.g. بَیْتُ اللّہ (house of Allah), رَسُوْلُ اللّہ (prophet of Allah)

- مُفْرَد is divided into three types:

1. 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).
2. فِعْل (Verb): It gives meaning on its own and is also connected to any of three tenses. For eg. سَمِعَ (he heard), نَصَرَ (he helped), کَتَبَ (He wrote).
3. حَرْف (Particle): It cannot give meaning on its own. In otherwords, its dependent on other words either اِسْم or فِعْل to be meaningful. For eg. 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)

- مُرَکَّبْ is divided into two types:

1. مُفِیْد (Beneficial): Give complete meaning or sentence. In otherwords, it gives you complete information. For eg. اَلْمَسْجِدُ کَبِیْرٌ (the masjid is big), ھَذَا کِتَابٌ (this is a book), نَصَرَ عَمْرٌو (Amr helped).
2. غَیْر مُفِیْد (Non-beneficial): Incomplete meaning or sentence. In otherwords, it gives you incomplete information. For eg. کِتَابُ زَیْدٌ (Zayd’s book), بَیْتُ الرَّجُلِ (house of a man), ھَذَا الْکِتَابُ (this book).