The small words that join the next word

Arabic writes some of its smallest words as part of the word that follows them. "And", "so", "with", "for" and "the" are each one or two letters, joined to the front of the next word. This lesson teaches those five, and two words they meet in the first line of al-Fātiḥah.

They come first because they are everywhere. Wa, "and", is the commonest of all the parts the Qur’ān's words are made of. The table below shows how many times each one occurs.

The new words

The table gives each word as the Quranic Arabic Corpus names it, the ways the Qur’ān writes it, its root where it has one, and how many times it occurs. One word, Allāh, has no meaning in the table. The course gives no meaning of its own for a word that carries the religion: read it in the verses, with the meaning beside them.

One written word, two words

When you meet a written word, look first at how it begins. The corpus divides every word of the Qur’ān into its parts, and many words begin with one of the five parts of this lesson.

The first word of al-Fātiḥah, bismi, is bi, "with", joined to ism, "name". Ism begins with an alif that is not written after bi, which is why the word is so short.

Lillāhi is li, "for", joined to Allāh. The corpus marks Allāh as a proper name.

The article

Al- is "the". It is written with two letters, alif and lām, joined to the front of its word, and it makes the word definite: a book, then the book.

When al- comes after li, its alif is not written: li and al- together are written lil-. This word has three parts: li, al- and the word they join.

How al- sounds before some letters is taught in the stage on reading the script.

And, and so

Wa joins a word to what came before it, as "and" does.

Fa is joined to the front of its word in the same way. It is often "so" or "then": what follows comes next, or follows from what came before. The corpus says which kind of fa each one is. Here it marks it as a particle of resumption (istiʾnāf), which begins a new sentence after the one before.

In a verse

In this verse you can find four parts of this lesson: al- twice, li once, and the name Allāh.

Reading

Maneno unayoyajua kikamilifu baada ya somo hili yamewekewa alama.

The words you know whole are marked. A word is known whole only when every part of it has been taught, so most words are still unmarked: the small parts come first, and the words they join follow in the next lessons.

Recall

• Which part of bismi means "with"?
• What two parts is lillāhi made of?
• What happens to the alif of al- after li?

Answers: bi; li and Allāh; it is not written, so li and al- are written lil-.

Next

The next lesson teaches the pronouns the Qur’ān joins to the end of a word: "his", "their", "our" and the others.