Nahw · syntaxWord classcore term6,420+ in the Qur'an
Also written: Ism Mawsul · Alladhi · Alladhina · Relative pronouns · Relative nouns
In one line
A relative noun — “the one who / that which” — linking a describing sentence back to a noun.
Classical definition
الاسْمُ المَوْصُولُ مَا يَدُلُّ عَلَى مُعَيَّنٍ بِوَاسِطَةِ جُمْلَةٍ تُذْكَرُ بَعْدَهُ تُسَمَّى صِلَةً، كَالَّذِي وَالَّتِي وَمَنْ وَمَا.
“The relative noun points to a specified thing by means of a sentence mentioned after it, called the sila — like الَّذِي, الَّتِي, مَنْ and مَا.”
(بتصرف من الألفية)
Key words in the Arabic
بِوَاسِطَةby means of
صِلَةthe link-sentence (relative clause)
Understand it
The mawsul on its own is incomplete — it must be followed by its sila, the sentence that does the describing, and that sentence occupies no i'rab slot of its own (لَا مَحَلَّ لَهَا). الَّذِي and الَّتِي decline for gender and number; مَنْ serves for people and مَا for things, exactly where English reaches for “whoever” and “whatever”. Relative nouns appear roughly 3,500 times in the Quran — الَّذِينَ alone accounts for 1,059 of them.
How to spot it
Recognition test
One of the الَّذِي family — or مَنْ / مَا meaning “the one who / that which” — followed by a sentence that completes it.
In the Qur'an
ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْغَيْبِ
Al-Baqara 2:3 — “Those who believe in the unseen”
ٱلَّذِينَ is the mawsul; the sentence after it, يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْغَيْبِ, is its sila — together: “those who believe in the unseen”.
Related terms
▶ Watch the lesson
From the free course The Language of Quran — Easier than English (Book 1) (LoQ1), taught by Ustad Muhammad Arjan Ali.
Common questions
Do the dual forms matter?
Barely, for Quranic reading: اللَّذَانِ and اللَّتَانِ each appear only twice in the entire Quran. Master الَّذِي، الَّتِي and الَّذِينَ first.
Why is الَّتِي used for plurals of objects?
Non-rational broken plurals are treated as singular feminine throughout Arabic grammar — so books, mountains and verses all take الَّتِي, the same rule that governs demonstratives and adjectives.
Domain: Nahw · Category: Word class · Frequency in the Qur'an: 6,420 · Source: بتصرف من الألفية, cross-checked against the Quranic corpus · Reviewed by Ustad M. Arjan Ali