Grammar term · I'rab · Estimated and omitted
Implied estimation (taqdir)
taqdir
تَقْدِير
I'rabEstimated and omittedcore term
In one line
Taqdīr (تَقْدِير) is the reading-in of what the ear cannot hear: the omitted or hidden element is assumed, and the i'rab treats it as though it were spoken.
Classical definition
التَّقْدِيرُ إِعْطَاءُ المَحْذُوفِ أَوِ المُعْتَلِّ حُكْمَ المَلْفُوظِ بِهِ، فَيُنْوَى لَفْظُهُ أَوْ حَرَكَتُهُ.
“Taqdir is giving the omitted or the phonetically altered element the ruling of what is actually uttered — it is intended though unspoken.”
Key words in the Arabic
يُنْوَىis intended, read in
حُكْمَ الْمَلْفُوظِthe ruling of the spoken
Understand it
Taqdir is the grammar's X-ray: it sees the damma the alif of الْهُدَى cannot show, the هُوَ hiding inside زَيْدٌ قَامَ, the أَهْل missing from 'ask the town'. Whenever you read an i'rab line saying مُقَدَّر or تَقْدِيرُهُ, this operation is running — the analysis restores what pronunciation or economy concealed, so the rules apply without exception.
How to spot it
Recognition test
Any gap between what the rule demands and what the mouth says is closed by taqdir: hidden vowels on weak endings, hidden pronouns in verbs, omitted words with an indicator. State the taqdir explicitly in your i'rab.
In the Qur'an
وَمَا مَنَعَ ٱلنَّاسَ أَن يُؤْمِنُوٓا۟ إِذْ جَآءَهُمُ ٱلْهُدَىٰٓ إِلَّآ أَن قَالُوٓا۟ أَبَعَثَ ٱللَّهُ بَشَرًا رَّسُولًا
Al-Isra 17:94 — “What kept men back from belief when Guidance came to them, was nothing but this: they said, "Has Allah sent a man (like us) to be (His) Messenger?"”
ٱلْهُدَىٰٓ is fa'il, and its damma exists only by taqdir — assumed on an alif that can carry nothing.
Related terms
Common questions
Is taqdir guesswork?
No. What may be read in, and where, is governed by rule, and the reading has to be defensible from the sentence itself. It is the grammar accounting for something the ear cannot hear, not the reader supplying what he would prefer.
Updated