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M.A.L.I.

ARABIC LESSONS
Muslim American Logic Institute
Text Box: INTRODUCTION LETTERS The Arabic Language alphabet consists of 28 letters representing the consonants with the hamza replacing the alif as a glottal stop. The letters make up soft and hard sounds. There are three diacritical marks that represent the three short vowel sounds and the alif, wow, and yaa represent the elongated vowel sounds. Thus, the combination of the pronunciations of the letters are short sounds, long sounds, soft sounds and hard sounds which are joined together and governed by rules of logic. NOUN The noun can take on the state of definiteness or indefiniteness. Definite nouns are indicated by the letters alif-lam prefixed to the word. Whereas, the indefinite is recognized by a tanween suffixed or ending of a word. The alif-lam or definite letters consists of what is called “sun letters” and “moon letters.” The lam is pronounced with the moon letters. The lam is written with the sun letters however the sound is assmimlated in the sun letter by placing a shadda on the letter that follows it. When we are reading the Qur’an we will notice that after the nouns with the alif-lam they will either have a shadda or not. If it has the shadda the lam is not pronounced but if it does not have a shadda the lam is pronounced. The Arabic noun can take three cases: nominative where the noun ends in damma or tanween-damma; accusative where the noun ends in fatha or tanween-fatha; genitive where the noun ends in kasra or tanween-kasra. If the noun is a subject of a sentence or directly affected by the subject it will end in damma. If the noun is affected by a verb it will end in fatha, and if the noun is affected by a preposition it will end in a kasra. Arabic nouns are identified in masculine and feminine genders. The feminine gender usually recognized by the placing of a ta marbuta or feminine letter ta as the end of the noun. However there are nouns that are feminine by nature and will not carry the ta marbuta, such as the word for earth ‘ard,’ or self ‘nafs.’ Nouns can also be described by other nouns that follow them. They may describe then in terms of an adjective, emphasis, substitute, clarity, sequence, apposition, etc. A noun can be defined more closely by a subsequent noun that form a possessive case of construct. The first noun that is being possessed by the second will be definitive but does not take the definite letters alif-lam. The second noun in the possessive construct will always end in kasra or tanween-kasra, the genitive case. These nouns may offer a string of terms or nouns whereas all but the final noun is definitive and all but the first term is genitive PRONOUN Pronouns in the Arabic Language are detached and attached to nouns and verbs. They indicate the singular, plural and dual. They are also in the first, second and third person in the singular and dual and only second and third person in the dual. The pronouns are attached as a suffix to the noun and verb. If the noun is attached to the noun its in the possessive construct and if its attached to a verb its attached as the direct object of said verb. There are two demonstrative pronouns in the language. One is pointing to something near and the other indicating something far, i.e., this and that. VERB The Arabic verb indicate an action that takes place in the past, present, or future. The verb is based upon a trilateral root, that is it is made up of three consonants as its root. The past tense indicates as action that has been perfected or completed as we speak. The present tense indicates an action the is still in progress as we speak and the future or command verb indicates an action that will take place after we speak. The past and present tenses may be conjugated in the first, second and third person, singular, plural and dual. The command verb is conjugated in the second person only, singular, plural and dual. All are expressed in both genders. The present tense verbs has in its construction mood changes that are derived from replacing the final vowels or letters. These moods are called subjunctive and jussive. The subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses and the jussive is used in negation, imperatives. VOICE The Arabic language has two voices, active and passive. The voices are indicative in the word formation of its vowels markings. Derived verbs vary on the shape taken by its roots. These forms are referred as the ten basic forms of the verb. Whereas, in each form is a meaning giving shape to that particular form. For instance, in the first form the verb may be just stating a face. In the second form that same root with the addition of a shaddah the middle letter of the root would indicate the same action but with intensity and reciprocity. The third form would indicate reciprocity, the forth causative and so on. The word forms in Arabic are basically three types of verbs and three types of nouns. The verbs are past, present and command and the nouns are internal, active and passive. Some refer to the internal noun as infinitive or verbal noun. I just use the word internal from the Arabic word masdar which means the ‘heart’ or ‘internal.’ These words are also joined together or connected to form a logic. SYNTAX In Arabic there are basically three kinds of words: noun, verb and particle with prepositions being a particle. We have discussed the verb in its different moods as they are affected by a particle. In terms of nouns, we have indicated that the noun that ends in damma or tanwee-damma is affected by a subject or it is the subject itself. If the noun ends in fatha or tanween-fatha it is affected by a verb and if the noun ends in kasra or tanween-kasra it’s affected by a preposition. There are rules of logic that applies to each of these endings or effectiveness. CONCLUSION This is the basic foundation for the learning of the Qur’anic Arabic. It is very important that we learn to read the Qur’an in Arabic if we are to understand what the Qur’an is saying before we are to deal with its meanings. If we really want to understand the teachings of Imam W. Deen Mohammed we must learn to read the Qur’an in Arabic. If we are to be serious in doing dawah or being Imams of this religion, Al-Islam, we must learn to read and comprehend the Qur’an in Arabic.