Long time! I apologise for the delayed blog post; with hajj holidays combined with a busy schedule I didn’t make time to blog but we will resume as usual now – God willing!
We have officially started النّحْو (looking at sentences) and الصّرْف (looking at words); this post will focus on the former. النّحْو concerns knowing how to read, write and speak in Arabic correctly; without making any mistakes because, as we have drawn upon in previous posts, even the slightest grammatical nuance can completely change the meaning.
So how did the concept of النّحْو come about? To understand this we will have to take a step back into history; all the way back to the time of Ali (رضي الله عنه) the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) and the fourth caliph.
The concept of النّحْو stems from the time when the caliphate moved to Iraq where there were many new Muslim converts who did not know Arabic very well and made mistakes in the language. There was therefore a strong need to codify the language. This task was started by Ali who set out the structures, such as, that the Arabic speech is divided into three particles verbs, nouns and particles. He then said to a companion of his Abu al-Aswad al-Du’ali “اُنْحُ هَذَا النَّحْو” – “follow in this manner”. This was the first person to formally codify Arabic grammar.
One night Abu al-Aswad al-Du’ali was sitting under the stars along with his daughter when she said to him “ما أحْسَنُ السَّماءِ” – “What’s most beautiful in the sky” to which he replied “the stars”. She said that she wasn’t looking for an answer but rather making a statement, so he corrected her “ما أحْسَنَ السَّماء” this then became a statement of wonderment. As you can see the only change between these two statements is the diacritic on the letter ن – changing from a dhammah to a fathah. النَّحْو is therefore important to keeping the beauty of this language.
النّحْو takes up 2/3 of our lessons for which we have a new ustadh (teacher). We were yet again blessed with an ustadh who showered us with gems during class. For example, we looked at the concept of اسْتِقامَة (Istiqaamah-steadfastness) and the importance of completing our duties despite our wavering spiritual levels. We also looked at advice from the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) which applies to students of knowledge but also generally, he (ﷺ) said:
(1) Seek out what is of benefit
(2) Seek help in Allah
(3) Do not render yourselves incapable
Empowering right? Let’s go deeper.
Point 2 looks at seeking help in Allah and what are two ways which Allah tells us to seek this help from the Quran? In patience and in prayer. Patience can be split into 3 kinds:
- patience in refraining from sinning (such as missing class unjustified),
- patience in performing good actions even when your nafs (ego) doesn’t want to, and
- patience in persevering when going through an affliction e.g. having patience in a task despite demotivating thoughts for example, losing hope because of bad results.
Point 3 really takes me due to its empowering message ‘don’t give up’ especially before you’ve even started ‘have hope!’ – Commentators even said this point also concerns to ‘not be lazy’.
Right, so back to Arabic grammar. You’ll remember from the last post (week 3) the tree of words in Arabic. In sum we identified that Arabic words are utterances which are meaningful and not meaningful.
Meaningful utterances are of two types:
- singular words
- combined words
Singular words are of a further three types:
- nouns
- verbs
- particles
We will extend this tree further…
Nouns are of three types:
- Defective
- verbal-nouns
- derivation nouns.
Verbs are of four categories:
- past
- present
- imperative (command)
- prohibition
Particles are of two types:
- governing
- non-governing
Governing particles can change the case of nouns or verbs after it whereas non-governing particles cannot change cases of words after it.
All categories in this section will be explored in further depth as the lessons progress. A basic understanding of this is good.
Finally we are currently learning how to look for signs to help us identify whether a word is a noun, a verb or a particle. We started with nouns which has 12 signs:
1) The word has a definite article: ال
2) The word has a tanween ً ٍ ٌ
3) The word is dual
4) The word is plural
5) The word ends with a ة
6) The word is in the vocative (think vocal) i.e. the noun is preceded by “يا” – “Oh so and so”
7) The word in the genitive state (Jarr state)
8) The word is possessed in a possessive construct e.g. the book of Zayd
9) The noun being described i.e. in an adjectival phrase e.g. the red book
10) The word is a subject in the sentence
11) It is the diminutive ‘فُعَيْلٌ’
12) It is a related noun i.e a noun with the suffix يّ e.g. الْهِنْديُّ(related to India)
Final final point of the post: look at a narration of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: ‘Those who show mercy The Most Merciful will be merciful towards them. Show mercy to those on earth and the one above the heavens will show mercy to you’. There is a tradition amongst hadith scholars to teach this narration as one of the first narrations given to a student, an unbroken tradition which has been practiced since the early predecessors till this very day.
The focus of this hadith is mercy which comes from the three roots letters ر ح م. The root meaning of these letters refers to the womb of a woman (so deep!). Our teacher drew upon three types of mercy:
- Al-Raahim (الرَّاحِم): this is a controlled quality which is temporal.
As for al-Rahman الرَّحْمان it has more letters hence its meaning is more exaggerated, and encompassing.
2) al-Rahmah (الرّحْمَة): The religion pivots on rahma as Allah said to His messenger ﷺ ‘we have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds’ – رَحْمَة
3) Al-Raheem (الرَّحِيم): This is one who shows constant mercy. Notice the difference between this and the first variation.
As you can see mercy and being merciful is integral to the Muslim faith if you don’t embody this rahma then one of the greatest objectives of studying the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ; who was sent as a rahmah, is all together missed.
So again, be merciful and the most merciful Allah will show mercy to you.
That’s all for now folks, expect me to add and edit this post. Next one will be on الصّرْف.
Ma’salaam
Arabic gem of the week: Istiqaamah: is to do what you said you would do long after the emotion in which you said it has left
Logicalwayfarer 