What is the predicate (khabar)?

In one line

Classical definition

Understand it

Name a thing, then say something about it. The naming is the مُبْتَدَأ; the saying is the خَبَر. Without a khabar there is no sentence, only a word left hanging.

In الْمُسْلِمُ صَادِقٌ (al-muslimu sadiqun), the Muslim is truthful, صَادِقٌ is the khabar, and it carries rafa exactly as the mubtada' does.

The two parts of a nominal sentence

Both are marfu'. Change the mubtada' and the khabar follows it in number and gender.

The khabar agrees with its mubtada' in i'rab, in number and in gender: الْمُسْلِمَانِ صَادِقَانِ, الْمُسْلِمُونَ صَادِقُونَ.

A khabar need not be a single word. It can be a prepositional phrase — زَيْدٌ فِي الدَّارِ (zaydun fi al-dari), Zayd is in the house; a word of place — زَيْدٌ عِنْدَكَ; a verb with its own doer — زَيْدٌ قَامَ أَبُوهُ, Zayd, his father stood; or a whole nominal sentence of its own.

How to spot it

In the Qur'an

In the language — فِي اللُّغَة

The word خَبَر (khabar) in everyday Arabic means a piece of news, a report.

نَشْرَةُ الْأَخْبَارِ (nashratu al-akhbari) — “the news bulletin”

As a grammatical term it means the part of a nominal sentence that reports something about the mubtada'.

Related terms

Common questions

Must the khabar be a single word?

No. It can be one word, a prepositional phrase, a zarf, or a whole sentence. What makes something a khabar is the job it does — completing the statement about the mubtada' — not the shape it happens to take.