Nahw Session - Recap | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Nahw Session Recap — Week One

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Dear students and fellow mafatih, may Allah bless you all. Hopefully everyone is doing well. So in today's recap, I will recap what we discussed last week in our Nahw class.

Sarf vs. Nahw — What Is the Difference?

In our first session of Nahw, we talked about the difference between Sarf and Nahw. We said Sarf only deals with verbs — that's where it starts and that's where it ends. All the changes in the verbs, all the different types of verbs: four types of verbs, each verb has 14 conjugations. There's māḍī, muḍāri', amr, nahī — there's a lot going on with verbs.

And then we said Nahw talks about everything else — not just nouns. It talks about sentences, sentence fragments, so you're talking about full sentences, phrases, and just normal words. All of that is found in Nahw. Nahw in itself means "the direction" or "the corner," and that's what informs us of the importance of Nahw.

One of the main objectives of Nahw is to understand how the word ends and how it connects to the word coming up next to it. How do I know which ḥarakah should be on the last letter? Should it be fatḥah, should it be ḍammah, should it be kasrah? How do I know that? That happens when we understand and learn the science of Nahw.

The Three Parts of Speech in Arabic

The first thing that we discovered in Nahw was — just like how verbs have three main properties (person: third, second, first; gender; and quantity) — similarly, nouns also have four consistent qualities. And "noun" isn't quite the right word for ism. Ism is pretty much inclusive of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and more.

We don't have eight or nine parts of speech in Arabic — we only have three: ism, fi'l, and ḥarf. Ḥarf is just particles — literally just particles like fī, 'alā — "in," "on top," "next to" — those are the ḥurūf al-jarr, which we will learn about insha'Allah.

The Four Qualities of an Ism

So ism is all those types of things. Ism has four qualities. Number one, it has what we call a status. I didn't go through all four because that wasn't the objective of the class last week, and neither is it the objective of this video — I'm just going to talk about the first one.

The first one is the status. The other three are pretty much the same as the verb's properties anyway. The only thing that the verb doesn't have is this one — the status (i'rāb).

Why the Ism Is Stronger Than the Fi'l

I also discussed — and I found this to be interesting and intriguing — how a noun and a verb are different. Which one is stronger? I'll give you a second to think about it. If you guys remember, the answer is: it's the noun. Nouns are stronger.

Allah taught all the names (asmā') to Adam, peace be upon him — because from nouns come verbs. I used the example of الحمد versus نحمد. Allah didn't say احمد — Allah said الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ. The difference is that a verb is limited to a time frame and also limited to a doer, while a noun is not limited to either of them — it is continual and it doesn't need a doer. That is how it is stronger.

The First Quality of an Ism: Status (I'rāb)

The first quality of a noun is its status (i'rāb). By status I mean:

These three statuses are reflected in the ḥarakāt: ḍammah for raf', fatḥah for naṣb, and kasrah for jarr. So a word becomes marfū', manṣūb, or majrūr, and the way we know which one it is, is through the fatḥah, ḍammah, and kasrah.

When Does a Word Have Raf' (Ḍammah)?

The more important part of the class was: when does a word generally have raf'? I mentioned two situations:

Number one — Natural state: Naturally, a noun always has raf'. The natural state of a noun is that it has ḍammah on it. Just like I asked you in class — what is the natural state of a fi'l māḍī? The answer is fatḥah — ضَرَبَ، فَعَلَ، كَسَبَ، كَسَرَ، نَصَرَ، قَتَلَ، سَجَدَ — it's always fatḥah. The natural state of muḍāri' is ḍammah. The natural state of an ism is also ḍammah. So if I write an ism on its own — without any attached words affecting it — it will have ḍammah. If I say "the book," it will be الْكِتَابُ, not الْكِتَابَ. If I say "water," it will be الْمَاءُ — the natural state is that it has raf'. That's the first situation in which a noun has ḍammah — when nothing is affecting it — i.e., when it is the subject of a sentence.

So if I say "the sky is beautiful," it's not going to be السَّمَاءَ — it's السَّمَاءُ جَمِيلٌ. It's not جَمِيلَ — it's جَمِيلٌ. Both have ḍammah because nothing is affecting them. (Why one has ال and the other has tanwīn — that is part of the four elements of a noun, which is separate.)

Number two — The doer (fā'il): A word has raf' when it is the doer of a sentence. This is the one we focused on quite a bit last week. For example: "Ibrahim ran into the classroom" — who is the doer? Ibrahim is the doer. If I say "Allah raised the sky," the doer is Allah, the verb is رَفَعَ. It would be رَفَعَ اللَّهُ — not رَفَعَ اللَّهَ. اللَّهَ would make it the object — اللَّهُ is the doer.

Another example: "I drank water." "I" is the doer. The water is the object. شَرِبْتُ الْمَاءَ — it wouldn't be الْمَاءُ here because now it's not the doer — it's the object. So it would be الْمَاءَ.

"The student opened the door" — who is the doer? Obviously the student, because he's the one who opened. So it wouldn't be فَتَحَ الطَّالِبَ — it should be فَتَحَ الطَّالِبُ. It has to be الطَّالِبُ because that's the one that's opening.

Allah says:

Who was the one that killed and who was the one that was killed? دَاوُودُ was the one that killed, and جَالُوتَ was the one that was killed. If someone accidentally says قَتَلَ دَاوُودَ جَالُوتُ, it would break their salah — it is a major mistake. It must be قَتَلَ دَاوُودُ because دَاوُودُ is the doer. This shows you that a ḥarakah changing can change the entire meaning of a sentence. That is why Nahw is the greatest science of Arabic — because it teaches you how to put the correct ḥarakah on the last letter.

When Does a Word Have Naṣb (Fatḥah)?

When does a word have naṣb? When it is the object (maf'ūl bih). I kind of already explained that in light of the raf' discussion. For example: شَرِبْتُ الْمَاءَ — "I drank water." Or: ضَرَبْنَا الْجِدَارَ — "we hit the wall." The wall is the object. Or: قَرَأْتُ الْقُرْآنَ — "I read the Quran." It is الْقُرْآنَ and not الْقُرْآنُ because it is the object.

When Does a Word Have Jarr (Kasrah)?

A word has a kasrah when there is a ḥarf jarr that gives it a kasrah. There are a number of ḥurūf that give kasrah to the word after them. In the examples in class, we went through some of them — like فِي. And مِن:

That shows you that the kasrah on الْمَسْجِدِ came from مِن. So a word doesn't naturally have a kasrah — it happens because of something that comes right before it. A word doesn't naturally have a kasrah.

Summary: Raf', Naṣb, and Jarr

So to recap — raf', naṣb, and jarr are the three statuses, and this is the first of the four elements of a noun. We have three elements left that we'll cover insha'Allah in the upcoming weeks of class.

Raf' — natural state, and the doer (fā'il).
Naṣb — the object (maf'ūl bih).
Jarr — caused by a ḥarf jarr coming before it.

The normal sentence order is: verb — doer — object. That's how it normally comes. It can also come as: doer — verb — object. So I can say الْوَلَدُ ضَرَبَ زَيْدًا — "the boy hit Zayd." That can also happen. But generally, as we did in class, it would be: ضَرَبَ الْوَلَدُ زَيْدًا — الْوَلَدُ because it is the doer, and زَيْدًا because it is the object.

May Allah bless you all. Insha'Allah we'll see you next week in class, and hopefully this helps you understand and review what we covered.

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته