Learn Arabic
Arabic of the Qur’ān
عربية القرآنShort written lessons that teach the words of the Qur’ān in the order it uses them most, with the grammar each next verse needs.
Written and checked by AI
These lessons were written and checked by AI, and no teacher of Arabic has read them yet. The verses, their meanings and the analysis of every word are taken from their sources, which are named where they are shown.
How the course works
Each lesson teaches five to eight words and one point of grammar, in the order the Qur’ān uses its words most. Every example is a verse, a word of a verse, or a sentence written for practice, and every verse is shown with its meaning from the edition your language reads first. The course teaches the language: it gives no ruling, and does not explain what a verse teaches.
Word analysis: Quranic Arabic Corpus 0.4 (Kais Dukes)
Stage 0
Reading the script
The letters, the vowel marks and the muṣḥaf’s own spellings, to read any verse letter by letter.
If you already read the Qur’ān’s script letter by letter, you can begin at the next stage.
Lessons planned: 20
Lesson 1
How the script is written, and the first four letters
Arabic is written from right to left, its letters join, and dots tell many of them apart. The first four letters show all three.
Lesson 2
Jīm, ḥā’ and khā’
Three letters with one body, told apart by a single dot: below, none, or above.
Lesson 3
Dāl, dhāl, rā’, zāy and wāw
Five letters that join to the letter before them and never to the one after, so that one word can be written in more than one piece.
Lesson 4
Sīn, shīn, ṣād and ḍād
Two letters with three small teeth and two with a long loop, each pair told apart by its dots.
Lesson 5
Ṭā’, ẓā’, ʿayn and ghayn
Two letters with a loop and an upright stroke, and two whose shape changes most with their place in a word.
Lesson 6
Fā’, qāf, kāf and lām
Two letters with a small loop, told apart by one dot or two, and two tall letters that join forward, which is how they differ from alif.
Lesson 7
Mīm, nūn, hā’, yā’, and the hamzah standing alone
The last four letters of the alphabet, and the hamzah, which is written on its own and joins nothing.
Lesson 8
Joining, lām-alif and the stretching line
How a letter's shape follows its place in the joined piece, the one pair of letters written as a single shape, and the line that lengthens a join.
Lesson 9
Fatḥah, kasrah and ḍammah
The three short vowels are not letters but small marks above or below a letter, and a letter with one is read with that vowel after it.
Lesson 10
Sukūn
A small circle above a letter marks that no vowel follows it, and al-Fātiḥah has one in every verse.
Lesson 11
Shaddah
A small sign above a letter that stands for the letter twice over, and the vowel mark that is written with it.
Lesson 12
Tanwīn: fatḥatān, kasratān and ḍammatān
The three short vowels written twice at the end of a word, marking an ending said with an n sound, and the alif that follows one of them.
Lesson 13
Long vowels with alif, wāw and yā’, and the small alif
How a short vowel mark and the bare letter after it write a long vowel, and the small alif the muṣḥaf writes where a long ā is said and no alif is written.
Lesson 14
Maddah
The wavy sign written over an alif, a wāw or a yā’ where a long vowel meets a hamzah or a doubled letter, marking a vowel held longer.
Lesson 15
Hamzah and its seats
The hamzah written on an alif, a wāw or a yā’, the small hamzah carried by a stretching line, and alif with a maddah, a form other prints use.
Lesson 16
Tā’ marbūṭah and alif maqṣūrah
Two letters that take a shape of their own at the end of a word: a tā’ written like hā’ with two dots, and a yā’ shape without dots that stands for a long ā.
Lesson 17
The article, and the sun and moon letters
The alif and lām written at the front of a noun, and the two ways they are written, which depend on the letter that follows.
Lesson 18
Alif waṣlah
The alif with a small sign on it that begins the article and some other words in this print, and what happens to it when a word comes before it.
Lesson 19
The muṣḥaf’s small letters
The small wāw, yā’, nūn, mīm and sīn that the muṣḥaf writes above and below the line, and the round and the oblong circle written above an alif.
Lesson 20
The pause marks, and al-Fātiḥah letter by letter
The six pause marks written between words, the sign of a prostration, three marks that stand once each, and then the first sūrah read one letter at a time.
Stage 1
Half the Qur’ān
The commonest words of the Qur’ān, and the grammar that holds them together.
Lessons planned: 30
Lesson 1
The small words that join the next word
Five words of a letter or two that the Qur’ān writes as part of the word after them, and the two words they meet first in al-Fātiḥah.
Lesson 2
The pronouns that join the end of a word
The seven commonest pronouns the Qur’ān writes as part of a word, after a verb, a noun or a small word: they, you, he, we, I and she.
Lesson 3
From, in, on, to and about
The five commonest prepositions that the Qur’ān writes as words of their own, what happens to the word after them, and how they take a pronoun.
Lesson 4
No, not, indeed, except and that
The small words that deny, that give a sentence weight, and that join one sentence to another: eight of the commonest words of the Qur’ān.
Lesson 5
Who, which, this, that, he and they
The words that point to a person or a thing, the pronouns that stand on their own, and the letter that asks a question.
Lesson 6
The first verbs: said, was, made, came and knew
Five of the commonest verbs of the Qur’ān, and how a verb in its past form tells you who did the action.
Lesson 7
The present form of the verb, and the future
How a verb in its present form begins with a letter that tells you who acts, and how one letter in front of it makes it future.
Lesson 8
Every thing, between, before, then, or and when
Eight common words of the Qur’ān, and the construct: two nouns joined so that the first belongs to the second.
Lesson 9
Earth, sky, day, a people, nafs and people
Six of the commonest nouns of the Qur’ān, nouns that are feminine with no sign of it, and the two ways Arabic makes a plural.
Lesson 10
O, like, surely, and they (women)
How the Qur’ān calls someone, likens one thing to another, makes a verb certain, and speaks of women, with two nouns whose meaning is read in the verses.
Lesson 11
The command, and seven common verbs
Seven common verbs of the Qur’ān, and the form of a verb that tells someone to do something.
Lesson 12
Having: lahu, lakum and the pronouns after li and bi
How Arabic says "he has" and "for you" with li and a pronoun, and the pronouns the corpus counts apart after li and bi.
Lesson 13
You, we and they, and the dual
The pronouns that stand on their own as the subject of a sentence, and how Arabic speaks of two.
Lesson 14
Those, after, at, with, some, other than, until and below
Eight common words of the Qur’ān, most of them nouns that take the noun after them in the genitive.
Lesson 15
If, when and will not
The words of the Qur’ān for "if" and "when", which tell apart what happened, what will happen and what never did, and lan, "will not".
Lesson 16
Asking, rather, and the words that work like inna
How a question is asked, bal, "rather", the small words that, like inna, put the noun after them in the accusative, and laysa, "is not".
Lesson 17
Eight common verbs, and roots with a weak letter or a hamzah
Eight common verbs of the Qur’ān, and what happens to a verb whose root has a weak middle letter or a hamzah.
Lesson 18
The forms of a verb, the passive, and eight more verbs
Eight more common verbs, the passive, and the derived forms of a verb as the corpus marks them.
Lesson 19
Matter, way, heart, family, hand, knowledge, saying and night
Eight common nouns of the Qur’ān, with the dual and the broken plural on them, and a noun made from a verb.
Lesson 20
Words read in the verses: how they are built
Nine of the commonest words of the Qur’ān that carry the religion, given no meaning by the course, and the patterns they are built on.
Lesson 21
Many, few, clear: the word that describes a noun
Eight words that describe, five of them given no meaning by the course, and how such a word follows its noun.
Lesson 22
The one who does: the doer's noun and its plural
The noun Arabic makes for the one who does a thing, its masculine plural, and seven words built that way.
Lesson 23
Brother, father, owner: a case shown with a long vowel
Family words, and three nouns that show their case with a long vowel before what follows them.
Lesson 24
A house, the house, his house: making a noun definite
Eight nouns of the world around us, the ending that most often says a noun is not definite, and the three things that make it so.
Lesson 25
Threw, spent, struck: verbs of form IV
Eight of the commonest verbs of form IV, five of them given no meaning by the course, and how the form looks in the past, the present and the command.
Lesson 26
Verbs that end in a long vowel
Verbs whose root ends in a weak letter, how their last vowel changes, and five common ones, with three verbs that have no weak letter beside them.
Lesson 27
Names: one ending for two cases
Eight of the commonest names of the Qur’ān, the ending that sets many of them apart from most other nouns, and which names show it.
Lesson 28
She, I, which: the small words still to come
Eight small words the Qur’ān uses often, and how some of them work with a verb, a noun or what comes after them.
Lesson 29
Better than: saying more, with min
How Arabic compares two things, and eight common nouns with it, two of them given no meaning by the course.
Lesson 30
The order of a sentence, and eight words read in the verses
A verb that comes first stays singular, and eight more words that carry the religion, given no meaning by the course.
Stage 2
Roots and patterns
How a word is built from its root, and the verb forms in the order the Qur’ān uses them.
Lessons planned: 20
Lesson 1
The root: three letters and what is built on them
What a root is, how a family of words is built on it, and eight words from five roots, one of them given no meaning by the course.
Lesson 2
The first form: the vowels of the past and the present
Which vowels a verb of the first form takes in its past and its present, with seven common verbs.
Lesson 3
Form IV again: its doer's noun and its verbal noun
Two of the nouns built on verbs of form IV, and eight words of the form, four of them given no meaning by the course.
Lesson 4
Form II: the middle letter doubled
Form II of the verb, in its past, its present and its verbal noun, with eight common verbs, one of them given no meaning by the course.
Lesson 5
Form VIII: a t after the first letter
Form VIII of the verb, its present and its command, with eight common verbs, three of them given no meaning by the course.
Stage 3
Reading the Qur’ān
Guided readings, from the short sūrahs to the passages recited most.
Lessons planned: 40
Being written
Stage 4
Reading the ḥadīth
The words of a chain of narration, and reading a narration in the collections.
Lessons planned: 15
Being written
Stage 5
Reading Islam in Arabic
The words of worship, and reading a short tafsīr and the explanation of a ḥadīth in Arabic.
Lessons planned: 15
Being written
Stage 6
Speaking Arabic
Written conversations in Fuṣḥā, for the masjid, for travel, and for ʿUmrah and Ḥajj.
Lessons planned: 25
Being written