The 14 Detached Arabic Pronouns

0:00 The language of Quran, easier than English, lesson 5. As-salamu alaykum and welcome to lesson number 5. Alhamdulillah, we've reached a very good milestone from which we're going to develop further. In this lesson, we're going to learn 14 subject pronouns, all called rafa, detached pronouns in Arabic. And in part B, Inshallah, we will look at how they're used in nominal sentences.

0:25 And we will pick up also some rules related to sentences, some more advanced rules, Inshallah. The most important thing here is to know the importance of the pronouns and of course to memorise the 14 rafa pronouns in Arabic. So let's begin with the blessed name of Allah Azza wa Jal, Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. What are pronouns? I'm sure we all know them, that we use them in English all the time. When I say in English, Hamid is a student. And then I use the pronoun he.

0:54 That saves me repeating Hamid again and again. So pronouns are used instead of a noun. So here Hamid is a proper noun. Hamid is a student. He is hard working. Of course, for female in English, we use she. So the example here, Fatima is a teacher. She is wise. So you can see how pronouns are used.

1:15 And I can use the same pronoun to complete a paragraph. I can write a full essay, whatever I need to write. Because the noun has already been mentioned, I do not need to repeat the noun again. It's exactly the same in the Arabic language. So in English, we have many different types of pronouns. Here are three examples for you. I'm sure you're familiar with all of them. Subject pronouns are like he, she, they. We also have it in English.

1:42 If you go back to lesson number three, I'm sure you recall in English, we have the neutral gender. But in Arabic, we only have the masculine or feminine. So in English, we have it, for example, where in Arabic, it will be either he or she. So in English, we have it, you, I, we, they, she, he, etc. as subject pronouns. And then we have other types of pronouns called object, him, and possessive, his, etc.

2:09 So you can see in English, there are three different pronouns for the masculine singular. He, him, his. And then for the feminine singular, we have only two. She, her, and I suppose we could say hers. So this is the differences in English you're familiar with. In Arabic, we have also different sets of pronouns, two of them in particular that we will learn inshallah.

2:32 Most important is the ones we are learning now are equivalent to the subject pronoun. Please note that subject pronoun in Arabic. Now, if we use the pronouns in the wrong place, we could end up with a mess like this. For example, here I'm saying his came to me. I gave he him result. Now, if you're reading that, of course, it is a complete mess.

2:53 What I should have said in English was he came to me. I gave him, and it will be here, his result. Now, this is, of course, easy for you because you're familiar with the English language. So in Arabic, we also have different sets of pronouns. If we use them in the wrong place, we'll end up with this kind of mess. So what we need to do in Arabic also is to become familiar with the pronouns.

3:22 We're going to tackle this inshallah slowly. We're going to learn the subject pronouns in this lesson. Lesson number eight, inshallah, we'll pick up the other types of pronouns called the attached pronouns in Arabic because the pronouns are very, very important.

3:36 I do not think you'll pass through one line of Quran where there is no mention of a pronoun in the Quran itself. So it's very, very important for us to master. So here are the 14 pronouns that we need to learn in Arabic, and these are the 14 subject pronouns. And in each, I've numbered them from 1 to 14. Please learn them in this order, and I'll explain that why. It's very, very important.

4:00 Pronouns are very, very useful when they come to learning more advanced Arabic, in particular verbs, and you need to know which version it represents. So learn them in this order, and I've numbered them 1 to 14 for your convenience. So please note that because in Arabic, there are only three types of words, every word is either an ismun, fa'alun, or harfun, which has been covered in lesson number one.

4:24 Pronouns are actually a category of ismun, so ism, and they will have four properties, and hence we end up with 14. So for example, they will have definiteness, number, gender, and iram. So for gender, you will have masculine or feminine.

4:40 For number, you will have singular and dual. So what I've done here for you, I put the singular in this column, the dual in this column, and plural in this column, and of course, masculine and singular, you can see, and then we have something called person. So number one point to note about pronouns, that they are always definite.

4:58 So out of the four properties, pronouns are definite, and this set, because they're subject pronouns, are always rafa. Please note that three arab, they will always be rafa, there is no exception to this. So understand this point as well. Of course, we have the addition of person. So whether I'm talking about somebody that is third person, if I'm talking to you, you're second person, I'm the one speaking, I become the first person. That's how it works, insha'Allah ta'ala, and they do not change their ending.

5:27 So they remain fixed. So they're a category of ism, they have the four properties, and because we have to deal with gender and number, we end up with 14 variations, and insha'Allah, we will look at them in detail, and of course, we'll need to memorise them also. So the main points to note, that they are used 1370 times.

5:49 So the numbers that you see on the screen now are the numbers of each of these pronouns, and how many times they're used in the Quran. So they're very important for us, not only for vocabulary, but also for understanding the language. Note the following points as a summary of what we need to know about the pronouns. First of all, they are always definite. Why? Because they refer to a noun which has already been mentioned. Something known, definite.

6:15 So all pronouns are definite. And of course, we can have a set for masculine and feminine. Just like in English, we have he and she. In Arabic, we'll have the same, but we'll also have for you as well, which you'll see in a second, insha'Allah. And in terms of number, they can be, as I mentioned earlier, singular, dual, or plural. So singular has been put on the first column, dual on the second, and you can see on the third column, I've got the plural.

6:40 Plural, of course, in Arabic is three or more. So that takes care of our number. And as far as Arab is concerned, please note they're always rafa. This set are always rafa. They're always subject pronouns. So they're called rafa. There is no exception to this rule. Now, before you ask, what about nasab and jar? We will deal with that in lesson number eight, or we'll start to learn them from lesson number eight. And then we have the issue of person, which I'll explain insha'Allah.

7:07 Of course, it's quite simple when you speak English, you don't really need to think about what do you mean by person. But in English, we have, for example, we will say he, she, it, they. So when I say he, she, it, or they, I'm talking about somebody to you.

7:23 So you are the one we are speaking, and I'm saying to you, he is a Muslim, she is a Muslim. Or I'm saying they are doctors, okay? They are doctors. I'm talking about somebody, or I might say, or it is a car, or it is a pen. So I'm talking about someone or something, and this is called third person. As far as second person is concerned, we have only one in English. If I'm talking to you as a male or a female, I use you.

7:51 If I'm talking to you as one person, two person or a million people, I still use you. In Arabic, we have to use a different you for masculine, for feminine, singular, dual and plural. So we end up with six different pronouns, which you can see, inshallah, here, all covering the second person.

8:11 Similarly, in English, we have one, two, three different variations for third person, but in Arabic, we have six because we're catering for dual as well. In English, we only have he, she, and they. And the third, of course, point about first person is when I'm speaking. I'm the first person, I or we. I or we, and both masculine and feminine, use that, and therefore, we have only two. So they have been numbered just for your point to note.

8:38 One to six for third person, seven to 12 for second person, that's you. And for first person, of course, only two, I and we. So we is used for dual as well. So these are the ones we need to know. And this is the reason why we have 14 in Arabic. And in English, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, possibly, in terms of the same equivalent pronouns in Arabic and English.

9:06 So let's begin with the six pronouns for third person. So what I'd like you to do is use some hand signs, inshallah, these I've mentioned before in a previous videos I've learned from Dr. Abdulaziz from Understand Quran Academy. So let's share them with you. So I want you to imagine you're talking to me. We are communicating with each other directly. You and I are in front of each other and I'm pointing to my right, and I'm saying, he is a Muslim.

9:30 He is a Muslim. If I point to my left, I'm saying, she is a Muslimah or Muslim. She is a Muslim, Muslimah in Arabic. So he is a Muslim. She is a Muslim. So one person, if I'm telling you about one person, I'm pointing with one finger, two person, two finger, and three or more plural, I point with four finger. So this side is for masculine. This side is for feminine. Just think it's the camera turns the hands around.

9:56 This is my left hand, which has got my watch on it. And this is my right hand for you to note. So let's begin. Inshallah. Please repeat after me. And then two fingers pointing this way. And then four fingers pointing this way to indicate three or more. So whom is for masculine plural. So one more time, let's do the three. So again, let's do them one more time. Just the Arabic. So practise them in that order, please.

10:45 Now let's do the feminine. So for the feminine version, we'll use the left hand side inshallah. So here, she. Female. Female plural. So let's do the Arabic and English. Just the Arabic on its own. So you get the idea. Now let's practise the six of them together inshallah. The third person pronouns. So I'm going to do the whole six. In exactly the same way I've shown you.

11:47 First you repeat the English and the Arabic, then Arabic only. If you practise those six and write them down only once. Only once inshallah. And then take a break. Practise again. You'll never ever forget them. You will have them permanently in your memory inshallah. And you'll see how useful they are in the language. Now let's do the second person. Now imagine I'm talking to you. And I'm saying to you, you are a student. You are a student.

12:11 One person, right hand, one person. Of course in English we only use you. I'm just doing that to help you understand. That is dual and plural. But if you use your hand sign inshallah, it will take care of it over a period of time. Your brain will get associated that this is dual. This is plural. One more time. So just the Arabic twice.

12:54 Now the feminine of course. So if I'm talking to the male person, I say If I'm talking to a female, I say So again. Now just the Arabic for all six. Ready? So these are your six second person pronouns. Repeat them three times in cycle. Write them down once. Take a break. Do this exercise again next day. Or in the afternoon inshallah. Just space out and do it a couple of times. And you'll never ever forget these pronouns. Lastly, we're left with I and we.

13:58 So you point the finger towards your chest like so. And you say So again, just the Arabic. Because you're speaking, it's clear we're speaking. We don't need to use different forms. Arabic doesn't have for male and female. Both use So let's practise the whole range of them inshallah. And I can see the number of times they are used in the Quran. Please follow my hand sign. And please make sure that you're copying exactly the same way.

14:38 And you're repeating the cycle once in the morning. Maybe once in the evening. And do it for two, three days. And you will have the whole 14 pronouns. So instead of spending hours learning inshallah, matter of minutes. And please, please do write them down. I'll show you how to write them down in a second inshallah in a chart. So let's go. Alhamdulillah, in this cycle, if you practise, all 14 pronouns inshallah will become second nature to you.

15:25 And of course, they're used in the Quran 1370 times. This is the template you can use. You can design this yourself inshallah by hand or a ruler and a pencil. And you can photocopy the page if that is easy for you. Or you can just simply design the book, this layout. And of course, you can see them numbered 1 to 14.

15:47 And I've also got the details in the bottom there as well. You don't need that detail. But of course, you can get a copy of this. It's available in the book inshallah under Appendix E2. But simple template like this will be very, very useful. We're going to use it throughout our studies.

16:02 So either if you've got a computer or something, you can design this in inshallah. Just basically three across and four down. And then the bottom one will have only two boxes because there is no dual version. This will be used also for us to learn verbs as well. But we need to get the pronouns in properly. So please use this template, whichever form is easy for you.

16:25 If you have the book, you can photocopy or print, which again, convenience for you. But you need to write down because without writing, you're not going to learn inshallah. So please use this template for your studies.

16:35 If you remember right at the beginning and lesson, introductory lesson, I mentioned about the golden set of priceless gems of words. That we'll be learning in this course and which are absolutely critical for Quranic Arabic. So alhamdulillah, we've covered the Muslim table, which will really not give us vocabulary, but more like give us patterns of words that we can recognise the four properties easily.

16:55 And alhamdulillah, now we've learned the set of pronouns, the rafa pronouns. The other type of pronouns, we're going to start from lesson number eight and we'll be covering them right throughout. Again, they used almost every line of the Quran. So the rest of the words, inshallah, you have them that we're going to pick up in book one and they're all detailed there for you. And this will give you a significant vocabulary of the Quran. Almost 57% I include in the book.

17:21 So really the challenge is not learning vocabulary, but really knowing how they're used in order to form sentences and phrases. And as a reminder to you, the Quran has 114 surahs. We all know 6,236 ayat and approximately 78,000 words. Of course, in the standard Mus'haf, the one used by the Huffaz, there are 600 pages. Each juz' is divided into almost 20 pages and 20 pages makes one juz' of Quran. 20 times 30 gives us 600 pages.

17:55 So there are standard 600 pages in the Quran and each page has 15 lines. So about 9,000 lines in the Quran. So if you learn pronouns, which are in the Quran 1370 times, you will see them almost to a page at least. And when you learn the attached pronouns, you will see them more than 9,000 times. Of course, that means in every line of Quran. So very, very important set of words for us to learn.

18:19 I'm going to show you a few additional points now, which are important for you to know how they're used. And inshallah, second part of the video, we'll look at sentences. So these are the 14 detached, please note they're called detached rafa pronouns. Why are they detached? They're written separately as a separate word in their own right. So these are your pronouns. You'll see them written separately.

18:39 So they're relatively easy to recognise. And of course, we have the third person, which we looked at before. And in the third person, we have he, they, they in English. In Arabic, we have huwa, huma and hum, which we already know alhamdulillah. And of course, for the feminine, we have she, they, they. So imagine you're saying she is a Muslim. They too are Muslims. They are Muslims. We have he, huma and huma.

19:10 So we have six pronouns for third person in the Arabic language. We've gone through this already. Now, the important point to note about huwa and he, when it comes to English translation, sometimes we will translate instead of saying he or she, we will say it. And there's an example here. For example, I say, This is a house. It is small. It is small. It is a school. It is big.

19:41 So you can see here, very simply in English, we have to use our common sense when translating, whether we translate as he, she, or it. The other point, of course, you probably already noted that when I said huma, I could be using the same huma for masculine or feminine. And it is right.

19:59 It is the same word. However, we need to learn them in this way, because based on the context, you will know whether it is being used for male or female. For example, here I've got huma mu'minani. Now, you should be able to work this out now already from what we've learned in lesson number four with number. They too are believers. They too are believers. Of course, here mu'minani is masculine. It's masculine. And of course, it's indefinite.

20:28 And it is dual. And here, of course, it is rafa. So this thing should be easy for you now, inshallah. Same thing here. I've got huma. And the word for female mu'min is written like so, mu'minatun. So dual form, exactly ani ending, but it's added to the ta. So you have huma mu'minatani. So this is feminine. They too are believers. So I'm talking about two female believers in the second example. So huma can be used, of course, for male or female.

21:09 Now, you'll note all the pronouns that we've seen, they all end with some vowel. There's a vowel sound at the end of each of the pronouns, except for hum. You hear, you can see antum, which is the antum you all and hum they. They both include or they both conclude with a sukoon. There is no vowel applied. This causes some problems when it comes to reading in Arabic.

21:40 So please pay attention to the two examples on the screen. I have here antum, antum you all. And if I want to read this, I will say antum, pause, al-muslimuna. And then I say here hum. And again, I pause, I will read this as al-muslimuna. Now, the issue is when hamzatul wasaw is actually not read if something precedes it in reading.

22:09 So if I wanted to join the text together, I would have to go from here to the laam. And that causes a problem in Arabic called the meeting of two sukoons. The meeting of two sukoons, as I call it, the clash of two sukoons. So you have two sukoons coming together in reading, and it is impossible to read this in Arabic. So I cannot now read antum al-muslimun because there is no vowel being applied before it. So we need some vowel to come in.

22:46 So what happens in reading in Arabic? We change the antum to humu and antum to antumu. The dhamma is added to help in reading. So when you see this word, it is actually not a different word. It is exactly the same word as hum and antum. Hum and antum, exactly the same word. So what's happening here? Now I can read humu al-muslimun, and I can read antum al-muslimun, antum al-muslimun.

23:16 So if you see in the Quran humu with a dhamma, antumu with a dhamma at the end, the conclusion of it, you note that this is actually an addition to help read because of the clash of two sukoons coming together. So again, remember the rule, the dhamma is placed on the meem to help us in reading. And this is unique.

23:36 Normally, when we have the clash of two sukoons, a kasra is used, but this is unique here. And two examples from the Quran, please check the references yourself. Inshallah, again, you can see antum al-fuqaraa, okay, antumul, or if you read from the beginning here, wa antumul fuqaraa. So this Hamzatul Wasl is ignored, and the dhamma is placed on the meem. Exactly, we have here humu al-muflihoon, again, this is from Surah Baqarah. I'm sure you may be familiar with this ayah already.

24:08 Humu al-muflihoon, you can see here, there, the dhamma is placed on hum. So these are the few things that you might see, but this is to do with reading rules. Alhamdulillah, we reached the end of part one of the video, where we covered the 14 pronouns.

24:25 I cannot emphasise the importance of learning these pronouns, and I cannot emphasise the importance of using the techniques I mentioned, including repetition, seeing, reading, repeating, using your hand signs, inshallah, as well as using your pen to write them down, memorise them, learn them well, inshallah. You'll see them used in many, many times in the Quran, as well as in your further Arabic studies. May Allah bless you with the very best in this world and the hereafter for your intention to learn Arabic, to understand Quran.

24:56 May Allah bless you once again for all the positive feedbacks, du'as you have been sending me. They have been very much appreciated. Please make du'a Allah gives me tawfiq and ability to complete this series and also conclude book two. May Allah bless you all until the next video. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.