In one line
Classical definition
Key words in the Arabic
Understand it
Arabic assigns each negator a time and a grammar: لَمْ denies the past and clips the verb (jazm); لَنْ denies the future and bends it (nasab); لَا denies the present habitually and touches nothing; مَا denies bluntly, verb or noun alike. Choosing the negator IS choosing the tense — لَمْ يَفْعَلْ (he didn't), لَنْ يَفْعَلَ (he never will), لَا يَفْعَلُ (he doesn't).
The particles of negation
| # | Meaning | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | مَا | ma | not — mostly before a past verb, and it can also work like لَيْسَ |
| 2 | لَا | la | not, no — before a present verb, or denying a whole class |
| 3 | لَمْ | lam | did not — jazm, and it turns the mudari' into the past |
| 4 | لَمَّا | lamma | not yet — jazm |
| 5 | لَنْ | lan | will never — nasab |
| 6 | لَيْسَ | laysa | is not — a frozen verb, not a particle |
| 7 | إِنْ | in | not — a negating إِنْ, and a rarer use |
| 8 | لَاتَ | lata | there is no — and almost always with حِين |
This is the family that will not sit on one side of the 'amil line. لَمْ and لَمَّا govern jazm, لَنْ governs nasab, مَا and لَا govern nothing at all in their ordinary use — but both can work like لَيْسَ, raising the noun and putting the khabar into nasab. Read the ending to know which one you are looking at.
How to spot it
In the Qur'an
▶ Watch the lessons
From the free course The Language of Quran — Easier than English (Book One) (LoQ1), taught by Ustadh Muhammad Arjan Ali.
Common questions
How is a nominal sentence negated?
With لَيْسَ (a verb — it agrees in gender), or the particles مَا and لَا: the subject stays in rafa and the khabar goes to nasab — لَيْسَ زَيْدٌ عَالِمًا. With an indefinite subject, لَا is the usual choice: لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ.
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