What is a relative noun (ism mawsul)?
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.
| Used for | ||
|---|---|---|
| الَّذِي | alladhi | masculine singular |
| الَّتِي | allati | feminine singular |
| اللَّذَانِ | alladhani | masculine dual |
| اللَّتَانِ | allatani | feminine dual |
| الَّذِينَ | alladhina | masculine plural |
| اللَّاتِي / اللَّائِي | allati / alla'i | feminine plural |
| مَنْ | man | general — rational beings |
| مَا | ma | general — non-rational things |
The first six are specific: each is fixed to one gender and number. مَنْ and مَا are general — one form covers singular, dual and plural alike.
The word مَوْصُول (mawsul) in everyday Arabic means joined — something connected to something else.
وَصَلَ الْحَبْلَ (waṣala al-ḥabla) — “he joined the rope”
As a grammatical term it means an ism that is incomplete until a clause is joined onto it.
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.
Next in the guideصِلَة الْمَوْصُولWhat is a relative clause (silat al-mawsul)? →Updated