What is the noun of la of absolute negation?

In one line

Definition

Key words in the Arabic

Understand it

لَا رَجُلَ فِي الدَّارِ (la rajula fi al-dari) does not say “a man is not in the house”. It says there is no man in the house at all — the whole class denied together. That is why it is called لَا لِنَفْيِ الْجِنْسِ.

The noun immediately after it is its اِسْم, and it is mansub. But it is marked unusually: a single fatha, no tanwin, and no الـ. رَجُلَ, not رَجُلًا.

What this la does

The noun drops into nasab without tanwin; the khabar reporting about it stays in rafa.

Two conditions must hold, and the classical wording states both: the لَا must come directly upon the indefinite noun, and it must not be repeated.

When its noun is a mudaf, or resembles one, the fatha comes back with tanwin: لَا غُلَامَ رَجُلٍ فِي الدَّارِ, there is no man's servant in the house; لَا عِشْرِينَ دِرْهَمًا فِي الْكِيسِ, there are not twenty dirhams in the purse.

The most familiar sentence in Islam is built on this: لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا اللهُ — إِلٰهَ carries the bare fatha of its ism.

How to spot it

In the Qur'an

Don't confuse it with la resembling laysa

Do not confuse this لَا with the لَا that resembles لَيْسَ.

لَا لِنَفْيِ الْجِنْسِ puts its noun in nasab — bare fatha, no tanwin — and leaves its khabar marfu': لَا رَجُلَ حَاضِرٌ.

لَا الْمُشَبَّهَة بِلَيْسَ leaves its noun in rafa and puts its khabar in nasab: لَا رَجُلٌ حَاضِرًا.

The tanwin is the giveaway. رَجُلَ with a bare fatha is the noun of absolute negation; رَجُلٌ with tanwin is not.

Related terms

Common questions

Why does the noun after it lose its tanwin?

Because the negation is absolute. The particle and the noun are treated as a single unit denying the whole class at once, and that fusion is what strips the tanwin. A la denying only one instance behaves quite differently.