Grammar term · I'rab · The signs
Estimated (muqaddar) marker
'alama muqaddara
عَلَامَة مُقَدَّرَة
I'rabThe signsadvanced term
In one line
An estimated marker (عَلَامَة مُقَدَّرَة) is a case-vowel that the grammar requires but the word itself cannot carry.
Classical definition
العَلَامَةُ المُقَدَّرَةُ حَرَكَةٌ تَمْنَعُ مِنْ ظُهُورِهَا عَلَى آخِرِ الكَلِمَةِ عِلَّةٌ، كَالتَّعَذُّرِ فِي المَقْصُورِ وَالثِّقَلِ فِي المَنْقُوصِ.
“The estimated marker is a vowel prevented from appearing on the word's end by some impediment — impossibility on the maqsur, heaviness on the manqus.”
Key words in the Arabic
تَمْنَعُ مِنْ ظُهُورِهَاprevents it from appearing
التَّعَذُّرimpossibility — the alif takes no vowel
الثِّقَلheaviness — awkward to pronounce
Understand it
Say مُوسَى in rafa, nasab or jarr — the final alif cannot carry any vowel, yet the grammar still assigns one: مَرْفُوعٌ بِضَمَّةٍ مُقَدَّرَةٍ. The Quran's many weak-ending words (الْهُدَى، الدَّاعِي) decline like this — silently, except that the manqus alone shows its fatha in nasab. Nothing changes in what you recite; what changes is how you analyse it.
How to spot it
Recognition test
Words ending in ى or ي whose ending never visibly changes (maqsur, مُوسَى) or hides only its damma and kasra (manqus, الدَّاعِي — the fatha appears in nasab) — their i'rab is muqaddar.
In the Qur'an
هَلْ أَتَىٰكَ حَدِيثُ مُوسَىٰٓ
An-Nazi'at 79:15 — “Has the story of Moses reached thee?”
مُوسَىٰٓ is in jarr, but nothing on the end shows it: the word finishes in a fixed alif that cannot carry a vowel. The kasra is required by the grammar and estimated by the reader.
Study this ayah word by word →Related terms
Common questions
If the marker cannot be seen, how do I know the case?
From the role, not the ending. You work out what the word is doing — doer, object, possessed — and that tells you which case the grammar requires. The vowel is then said to be estimated on it.
Next in the guideالْأَفْعَال الْخَمْسَةThe five verbs →Updated