Arabic through the Quran

343 Pages·2016·8.95 MB·English

by  Alan Jones

Contents
Acknowledgement xllr
Introductory Note
The Arabic Alphabet
Lesson One
Adjectives
Nouns and 7
Exercise One . t4
Lesson TWo
Plurals
t(t
Exercise Two . zo
Lesson Three
))
The Declension of Nouns
Exercise Three ztl
Lesson Four
Prepositions 3o
Exercise Four
33
Lesson Five
The First Person Singular Genitive Suffix
Separation
and the Pronoun of 3i
Five
Exercise 37
Lesson Six
Demonstratives
39
Six
Exercise 42
vll
ARABIC TTIROUGIT THE QUR'AN
Lesson Seven
Ida.fo
41
Exercise Seven
4ll
Lesson Eight
The Perfect Tense
5o
Exercise Eighr
5-5
Lesson Nine
Pronominal suilixes
57
Exercise Nine
6t
Lesson Ten
The particle
nra
63
Exercise Ten
6u
Lesson Eleven
Kull: ba'd; the accusative ol tirne
7o
Exercise Eleven
/3
Lesson Twelve
Kana; qala; lamma
75
Excrcise Twelve
Uo
Lesson Thirteen
The Dual
8z
Exercise Thirteen
8_s
Lesson Fourteen
Cardinal Numbers
u6
Exercise Fourteen
92
Lesson Fifteen
Derived Forms of the Verb
93
Exercise Fifteen
97
vl1l
Contents
Lesson Sixteen
Inrperfect
The
99
Sixteen
Exercise ro3
Lesson Seventeen
Interrogatives toJ
Seventeen
Exercise r ro
Lesson Eighteen
The Subjunctive
Eighteen
Exercise t t9
Lesson Nineteen
Inna tzt
Nineteen
Exercise r2S
Lesson Twenty
The t27
Jussive
Twenty
Exercise r3o
Lesson Twenty-C)ne
Laysd; idh; idha; rndn r32
Twenty-One
Exercise t37
Lesson Twenty-Two
Verbs with a hamza as one of their Radicals t3g
Twenty-Two
Exercise t4z
Lesson Twenty-Three
Sentences
Relative
t 44
Twenty-Three
Exercise t49
Lesson TWenty-Four
AssimilatedVerbs ljr
Twenty-Four
Exercise r J3
IX
I
ARAIITC TrIR()UGH T'rIE QUR'AN
Lesson Twenty-Five
The Elative I J5
Exercise Twenty-Five r6o
Lesson Twenty-Six
Doubled Verbs t63
Twenty-Six
Exercise t (r5
Lesson Twenty-Seven
Exceptive Sentences wrth illA r67
TWenty-Seven
Exercise r7o
Lesson Twenry-Eight
Hollorv Verbs 172
ExerciseTwenty-Eight.
r7u
Lesson Twenry-Nine
The Vocative r lJo
Twenty-Nine
Exercise 183
Lesson Thirty
Defective Verbs rUj
Exercise Thirty t92
Lesson Thirty-One
C)rdinal and Other Numbers t94
Thirty-C)ne
Exercise t97
Lesson Thirty-Two
The Imperative r99
Thirty-Two
Exercise 2o2
Lesson Thirty-Three
The Passive 2o4
Thirty-Three
Exercise 2o7
Contents
Lesson Thirty-Four
More about Nouns zto
Exercise Thirty-Four . z16
Lesson Thirty-Five
More on the Accusative ztS
Thirty-Five
Exercise z2S
Lesson Thirty-Six
Sentences
Conditional 227
Exercise Thirty-Six 4tl
Lesson Thirty-Seven
More about dn; 'asa and la'alla 21o
Thirty-Seven
Exercise 246
Lesson Thirty-Eight
law-la
Special verbs; 248
Thirty-Eight
Exercise 253
Lesson Thirty-Nine
The Energetic; Oaths and Exclamations 255
Exercisc Thirry-Ninc z6z
Lesson Forty
Special [Jses of ma kana;
Verbs of Wonder, Praise and Blame 264
Exercise Forty 268
Key to the Exercises 270
Technical Terms
General Vocabulary 296
XI
Acknowledgement
Over the years I have received advice and comments from many
friends, colleagues and students. I owe particular debts of gratitude
to Kinga D6v6nyi, Philip Kennedy, Samir Haykal, Lucy Collard
and Kahlan al-Kharusi.
I should also like to thank Fatima Azzam andJuan Acevedo of
the Islamic Texts Society fu. all their efforts and skill in turning a
difficult rnanuscript into a published book.
Finally, ny thanks go, as ever, to my wife Margaret, rvho
copes with my presence at home 'in retirement' with care and
equanimity.
AJ
xl1l
r
Introductory Note
Over the years it has often been suggested to rne that there is a
need for an Arabic grarnnar that rvill enable readers of English to
learn enough Arabic to be able to read the Qur'In in its original
language. This book attenlpts to fill that gap.
In its 4o lcssons the book covers all the inrportant points of
the granrmar of Quranic Arabic-though not evcry point, as there
are some problems of Qur'Inic gralnmar that the grarnmarians,
Arab and non-Arab alike, have never solved. Like grammarians
in the past, I have occasionally taken a sentence somewhat out
of context or changed a case-ending so that a pirrase can stand
alonc. Without thcse ninor ancl traditional peclagogic liberties,
examples of some gramnratical points would be very scarce. This
is hardly surprising, given the relatively small size of the text of
the Qur'ln. Nevertheless, Quranic examples are used in nrost
places in the explanatory material, and all the exercises consist of
Quranic quotations. The three topics in which I had to use most
non-Quranic examples were the nurnerals, relative sentences and
exceptive sentences. Here I have used a number of non-Quranic
exarnples to help me to provide a full explanation. Elsewhere such
exarnples are rare.
I have tried, wherever possible, to show the grammar of
the Qur'an within tlie broader frarnework of Arabic as defined
by the classical granrmarians and also that of later Arabic. For
most of the book this is a rrlarively straightfor-warcl task, even
though the language of the Qur'ln predates that of classical Arabic
ancl though it contains a range of expressions and constructions
that are not norrnally lound in later texts (unless, of course,
they crop up in a Qur'dnic quotation). For the greater part
of the book the reader mly be assured that there is relatively
lictle dil{erence between Qur'Inic ancl later Arabic, except in
vocabulary. However, the topics covered in the last five lessons
XIV
\
Introductory Note
show greater or lesser variation from later developments. In
particular, conditional sentences became, for a time at least, more
uniform than those we find in the Qur'in-and more recently
they have become less so.
Though some of those who use this book will be familiar with
Arabic script, many others will not be. For the latter the exercises
of the first five lessons have transliterations to help them to nlaster
Arabic script thoroughly. A certain amount of transliteration is
used throughout the rest of the book, particularly when it helps
the grammatical explanations to run snloothly.
The text of the Qur'In referred to throughout this book is
that of the Egyptian standard edition, first issued in r34z/ tgz3
and revised in r3tl 1/ 1t16o and subsequently. There are, however,
certain problems. First, the style of writing used in the standard
edition is somewhat ornate, and it also looks decidedly archaic in
comparison with the printing norms of the period when it first
appeared. Secondly, in more recent times the move to computer
type-setting of Arabic has somewhat reduced the options that used
to be available with hot metal type-setting. The result is that
the Arabic printecl in this book lacks the ornate and calligraphic
touches of the standard edition, though there is the consolation
that it is slightly easier to read. However, two attempts have been
made to provicle something of the feel of the standard edition. The
first is the intermittent use of short alif (see p. 3), and the second
is the use of the archaic spellings of a handful of conrmon words
(r.. p.
+).
Grammatical terms, largely English but sometirnes Arabic, are
used throughout the book. For those not familiar with grammati-
cal ternrinology there is a glossary of technical terms (pp.zgo-29),
which may be of sorne help, even though explanations of gram-
matical terms are always turgid.
It is assumed that most readers will be studying alone, and it is
to them that the following remarks are addressed. (Those fortunate
enough to have teachers will find that the teachers will have plenty
of their own guidance to ofrer.) Each lesson consists of three parts:
(a) exposition of a number ol gramrnatical topics. Each piece
ARABTC T[{R()UCH THE QUR'.IN
of grammar should be mastered before moving on to the next.
Particular attention should be paid to understanding the exarnples
given in a section. The grarnnratical sections are follorved by (b)
the Vocabulary for that lesson. The vocabularies are intencled to
be read from right to left. ln the first 7 lessons the first column
contains the singular fbrm of nouns, together with pronouns,
adverbs, prepositions, etc.; the second column contains such plurals
as are needed; and the third column has the English translation.
From Lesson tJ onwards there is a further column of Arabic to
allow the Perfecr, hnperfect and Verbal Noun forms to
Qn,tsdar)
be printed together. In Vocabularies r j-4o the Perftcts of derived
forms are precede d by a nunrber (..g. 2 ) to shorv which de rived
form is involved. There is also a General Vocabulary, rvhich puts
together all the words in Vocabularies r-4o in Arabic alphabetical
order. This is to enable a reader who has forgotten a word to look
it r.rp without having to remember rvhich lesson it was first used
in.
Every attempt should be macle to become familiar with the
worcls in a lesson's vocabulary before the reader nloves on to (c)
the exercise for that lesson. One can then test one's absorption of
the lesson by tackling the exercise. Some of the sentences will turn
out to be less straightforr,vard than they might at first appear. This
is often because they are without a wider colltext. Each exercise
should be attenrpted in the first place without reference to the Key.
If readers find that they still have problems, they should turn to the
Key, and look at the sentence and its translation together. Once
the sentences in an exercise are understood, the vocabulary should
be revised and fully mastered.
At various points there are exhortations to the reader to learn
the vocabulary and to learn it in a certain way. These are based
on experience with students over a nearly half a centr.rry and are a
reminder of how readers might help thenmelves. The same applies
to exhortations to learn declensions and conjugations. Eff-ort put
in at an early stage has real rewards.
Let nre stress agairr that this book's basic aim is to help the
reader to learn to read the Qur'ln. To go beyond the texts reterred
XVI