Sarf · morphologyGendercore term7,579+ in the Qur'an
Also written: Mudhakkar and Mu'annath · Masculine and feminine · Jins · Arabic gender · Feminine
In one line
A feminine noun, like مُسْلِمَة — everything that refers to it must agree in the feminine.
Classical definition
المُؤَنَّثُ مَا فِيهِ عَلَامَةُ تَأْنِيثٍ لَفْظًا أَوْ تَقْدِيرًا، وَصَحَّ أَنْ تُشِيرَ إِلَيْهِ بِقَوْلِكَ «هَذِهِ».
“The feminine is what carries a feminine marker, expressed or implied, and can properly be pointed to with هَذِهِ (“this”, feminine).”
(بتصرف من شذا العرف)
Key words in the Arabic
لَفْظًاexpressed — visible in the word's form
تَقْدِيرًاimplied — understood without being written
Understand it
A feminine noun is most often marked by the ta' marbuta (ة) at its end, as in مُسْلِمَة. But some words are feminine with no visible sign — women's names, paired body-parts (يَد، عَيْن), and a set of well-known words such as شَمْس (sun) and نَار (fire). That hidden group is what the definition means by “implied”: the marker is understood even though nothing is written.
How to spot it
Recognition test
The ة ending is the usual give-away; otherwise test with هَذِهِ — sun, fire, wind and paired body-parts pass it with no marker at all.
In the Qur'an
وَالشَّمْسِ وَضُحَاهَا
Ash-Shams 91:1 — “By the sun and its brightness”
شَمْس has no feminine sign, yet the pronoun ـهَا refers back to it as feminine — the sun is feminine by usage.
Related terms
▶ Watch the lessons
From the free course The Language of Quran — Easier than English (Book 1) (LoQ1), taught by Ustad Muhammad Arjan Ali.
Common questions
How do I decide the gender of a word with no feminine sign?
Use the three-step map. Real biological gender always wins — that is why حَمْزَة and عِيسَى are masculine despite their endings. Then the written signs (ة، اء، ى). Then the usage categories: paired body-parts, places and cities, fire, wind, wine, and the شَمْس set. No match = masculine, the default.
Domain: Sarf · Category: Gender · Frequency in the Qur'an: 7,579 · Source: بتصرف من شذا العرف, cross-checked against the Quranic corpus · Reviewed by Ustad M. Arjan Ali