Grammar term · Nahw · syntax
ضَمِير الْفَصْل
damir al-fasl
Separating pronoun (fasl)
Nahw · syntaxPronoun typeadvanced term196+ in the Qur'an
In one line
The separator pronoun: a هُوَ / هُمْ wedged between mubtada and khabar to slam the door on ambiguity — أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ.
Classical definition
ضَمِيرُ الفَصْلِ ضَمِيرٌ مُنْفَصِلٌ يُؤْتَى بِهِ بَيْنَ المُبْتَدَأِ وَالخَبَرِ لِلْفَصْلِ وَالتَّوْكِيدِ، لَا مَحَلَّ لَهُ مِنَ الإِعْرَابِ.
“The pronoun of separation is a detached pronoun brought in between the mubtada' and the khabar to separate and to signal that what follows is the khabar, not an adjective.”
(بتصرف من ابن هشام)
Key words in the Arabic
لِلْفَصْلِfor separation
لَا نَعْتnot an adjective
Understand it
Say زَيْدٌ الْقَائِمُ and a listener may hear an unfinished phrase ('Zayd the standing one…'). Insert the pronoun — زَيْدٌ هُوَ الْقَائِمُ — and the sentence locks: 'Zayd IS the one standing.' The Qur'an uses it constantly for exactly this force of confirmation and exclusivity: وَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ. On the preferred view it has no mahall of its own — it separates, emphasises, and stays out of the i'rab.
How to spot it
Recognition test
A detached rafa' pronoun standing between two definite parts of a nominal sentence (or between the two objects of ظنّ-verbs): damir al-fasl — parse the parts around it and give the pronoun itself no mahall.
In the Qur'an
وَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ
Al-Baqarah 2:5 — “and it is they who are the successful”
هُمُ separates أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ from ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ — confirming the khabar and adding 'they and no one else'; no i'rab place.
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