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Also written: Fil · Fi'l · Fi'l · Verb · Fi'l (naw' al-kalima) · FIL
In one line
A fi'l (فِعْل) is a word that means something in itself and carries a time — and it comes in three: past, present and command.
Definition
هُوَ كَلِمَةٌ دَلَّتْ عَلَى مَعْنًى فِي نَفْسِهَا، وَاقْتَرَنَتْ بِأَحَدِ الْأَزْمِنَةِ الثَّلَاثَةِ.
“It is a word that indicates a meaning in itself, and is tied to one of the three times.”
(النحو التطبيقي)
Understand it
A فِعْل (fi'l) shares half its definition with the ism. Both mean something on their own. The whole difference is time.
Say قَلَمٌ (qalamun) and nothing has happened. Say كَتَبَ (kataba) and something happened, and it happened before now.
Types of Fi'l
A fi'l is one of three: madi, what happened before now; mudari', what is happening or still to come; or amr, what is being asked for.
كَتَبَ (kataba) is past. يَكْتُبُ (yaktubu) is now, or still to come. اُكْتُبْ (uktub) asks for it. One root, three times.
How to spot it
وَالْفِعْلُ يُعْرَفُ بِقَدْ وَالسِّينِ وَسَوْفَ وَتَاءِ التَّأْنِيثِ السَّاكِنَةِ.
“The verb is recognised by قَدْ, by the سـ, by سَوْفَ, and by the silent feminine ta'.”
Recognition test
If قَدْ, سَـ or سَوْفَ will sit in front of the word, it is a fi'l. Another way: if the word has a past form, a present form and a command form, it is a fi'l.
(الآجرّومية)
In the Qur'an
كَلَّا سَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ
At-Takathur 102:3 — “But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality).”
سَوْفَ is one of the four verb-signs, and it can stand in front of nothing but a fi'l. تَعْلَمُونَ is that fi'l — and unlike an ism it fixes the knowing in time, here still to come.
Study this ayah word by word →In the language — فِي اللُّغَة
The word فِعْل (fi'l) in everyday Arabic means a deed — something done.
رَدُّ الْفِعْلِ (raddu al-fi'li) — “a reaction”
As a grammatical term it means a word that carries a meaning of its own together with a time.
Common questions
How do I tell a fi'l from an ism when I do not know the word?
Look at what it accepts, not at what it means. A fi'l takes the particles that announce time in front of it and the ta' of doership on its end. An ism takes tanwin, the definite article and a preposition. No word accepts both sets.
“And We have indeed made the Quran easy to understand and remember.”
Al-Qamar 54:17
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