Grammar term · Nahw · syntax
اِسْم كَانَ
ism kana
Subject of kana & sisters
Nahw · syntaxSyntactic rolecore term1,198+ in the Qur'an
Also written: Kana wa Akhawatuha · Kana · Defective verbs · Kana and her sisters
In one line
The subject of kana and her sisters — raised to raf' by the verb.
Classical rule
كَانَ وَأَخَوَاتُهَا تَرْفَعُ الاسْمَ وَتَنْصِبُ الخَبَرَ.
“Kana and her sisters keep the noun in raf' and put the predicate into nasb.”
(الآجرّومية)
Understand it
كَانَ (“was”) and her sisters — أَصْبَحَ، ظَلَّ، لَيْسَ and the rest — walk into a nominal sentence and adopt it: the subject becomes “the ism of kana”, keeping raf', and the predicate takes nasb. The pair إِنَّ and كَانَ are mirror images: each takes one of the two nouns into nasb, and comparing their opposite behaviour is the fastest way to master both.
How to spot it
Recognition test
After كان / أصبح / ظلّ …, the first noun, in raf', is the ism kana.
In the Qur'an
وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
Al-Ahzab 33:73 — “And Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful”
ٱللَّهُ is the ism of كان, in raf'; غَفُورًا is its khabar, in nasb.
Related terms
فَاعِل · fa'il
مُضَاف · mudaf
مُضَاف إِلَيْه · mudaf ilayh
مَفْعُول بِهِ · maf'ul bih
لَيْسَ · laysa
Common questions
What does “defective verb” (fi'l naqis) actually mean?
Not broken — incomplete. ذَهَبَ (“he went”) is a whole sentence in one word; كَانَ (“he was…”) leaves you waiting for a khabar. That structural incompleteness is all the name means.