This post is dedicated to my baby Rahma, the joy of my heart, light of my life, and queen of my kingdom, owing to whom this site has not been updated for a while. al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Undoubtedly the most oft-repeated names of Allāh are al-Rahmān الرحمن and al-Rahīm الرحيم, due to them […]
This post is dedicated to my brother. May Allaah protect you and have mercy upon you always habibee…ameen. al-Salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullaah, One of the first concepts encountered by those who decide to submit themselves to their Creator and accept Islam as their creed and way of life, is that a Muslim is the brother
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, The sound and pronunciation of a word is very important in Arabic, and this especially becomes a problem in the case of generating new words via the naht process. (Although it was mentioned before that one cannot do naht at their whim, the council of Arabic Language has permitted cases of
It just doesn’t sound right. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, I came across an amusing anecdote in Lisan al-‘Arab recently illustrating the dangers of engaging in naht haphazardly. It is related from Ibn Mas’ood (may Allah be pleased with him) that his wife one day asked him to provide a jilbab (protective outer garment worn outside the house) for her. He
The correct combination. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Since the dawn of early Islam, and largely provoked by the doctrine of the miracle of the Qur’an’s linguistic inimitability, scholars of both Arab and non-Arab stock concerned themselves with studying the Arabic Language deeply and comprehensively. They were able to establish a range of sciences (‘uloom) into which the letters,
The Science of Language Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Updates to the site may continue to be slow coming for the next month or so until further notice. Jazaakum Allaahu khayran for your patience. Edited: 28/06/06
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Arabic linguists of the past examined the semantic connotations of Arabic alphabetical letters according to their position in a word, and were able to notice certain trends in meaning. Although the rules are by no means to be taken as absolute, they may be viewed within the larger phenomenon of ishtiqaaq
Down to the last letter. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, While one of the aims of Arabic Gems is to provide original content related to the Arabic language, I came across a great article in The Daily Star by Tamim al-Barghouti that I wanted to post here. It is extremely interesting, has a nice philosophical take on the reasoning behind the
“Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon.” Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, There is a category of words in Arabic known as al-ad`daad الأضداد. They are a type of ishtiraak in which a single word shares different shades of meaning, but what is special about the ad`daad is that the same word is applied to two completely opposite meanings. For example, the word
Two ends of the same stick. Read More »
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, I thought that my previous entry on Ishtiqaaq marked the end of the linguists’ theories on this phenomenon, but it turns out there is more. Rather than looking at the roots as individual units, some scholars of Arabic viewed them according to their articulation points (makhaarij) or phonological characteristics (sifaat), and
Words are sounds of the heart. Read More »
