What is the sound feminine plural?
In one line
Classical definition
Understand it
How it is formed. Drop the ة and add ـَات: مُسْلِمَةٌ becomes مُسْلِمَاتٌ. Again the singular survives intact — that is what makes it sound.
How it shows its i'rab. With a vowel, not a letter — but not the vowel you expect:
The sound feminine plural — how it shows its i'rab
| State | Sign | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| rafa | damma | مُسْلِمَاتٌ | muslimatun |
| nasab | kasra | مُسْلِمَاتٍ | muslimatin |
| jarr | kasra | مُسْلِمَاتٍ | muslimatin |
The nasab is the surprise: a kasra where every other ism takes a fatha.
The special cases
Seven categories that express i'rab their own way — by letters instead of vowels, or by not showing it at all.
The nasab is the surprise. Every other ism you have met takes a fatha in nasab; this one takes a kasra. رَأَيْتُ الْمُسْلِمَاتِ, “I saw the Muslim women” — a direct object, in nasab, wearing a kasra. It is the mirror of the partly declining ism, which borrows a fatha for its jarr. Here a kasra is borrowed for the nasab.
⚠ أُولَات, meaning “women who have”, takes these endings without being a sound feminine plural — مُلْحَق. It is only ever used as a مُضَاف.
How to spot it
The kasra is not proof of jarr
A kasra on a ـَات word is not proof of jarr.
رَأَيْتُ الْمُؤْمِنَاتِ — the object of a verb, so it is mansub, and yet it ends in a kasra.
This is the clearest single proof that the ending is not the i'rab. Category first, always: once you know the word is a sound feminine plural, the kasra tells you it is nasab or jarr, and only the role decides which.
Related terms
Common questions
Why does the sound feminine plural take a kasra in nasab?
Because its ending refuses a fatha. This is the classic exception: where every other ism takes a fatha in nasab, this plural takes a kasra — the same vowel it takes in jarr — so only rafa tells the two states apart.
Next in the guideجَمْع تَكْسِيرWhat is the broken plural (jam' taksir)? →Updated