What is rafa (al-rafa), and what is a marfu' word?
In one line
Definition — the four divisions of i'rab
Key words in the Arabic
Understand it
رَفْع (rafa) is the name of the state; مَرْفُوع (marfu') is what you call a word standing in it. The two words are not interchangeable: the state is rafa, the word is marfu'.
For the great majority of isms, rafa shows as a damma — مُسْلِمٌ (muslimun) when indefinite, الْمُسْلِمُ (al-muslimu) with الـ. Other categories show it differently: the dual with ـَانِ, the sound masculine plural with ـُونَ, the five nouns with a وَاو.
What puts a word in rafa
Eight roles put an ism into rafa. The doer, the subject and the predicate are the three met first.
Raf' is never chosen for the sound of it. A word is marfu' because its role demands rafa — because it is the doer, or the subject, or the predicate, or one of the other five roles that call for it.
How to spot it
In the Qur'an
In the language — فِي اللُّغَة
The word رَفْع (rafa) in everyday Arabic means lifting or raising something up.
رَفَعَ يَدَهُ (rafaa yadahu) — “he raised his hand”
As a grammatical term it means the state whose sign is the raised vowel, the damma, and what stands in place of it.
Related terms
Common questions
What do the eight rafa roles have in common?
Each is the thing a clause is built around rather than something acted upon — the doer, the one standing in for him, the thing talked about, what is said about it, and the followers of these. Rafa marks the pillar of the sentence.
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