Eight common verbs, and roots with a weak letter or a hamzah

This lesson teaches eight more of the commonest verbs of the Qur’ān. Several of them have a root with a weak letter or a hamzah, and those change their shape in ways the corpus lets you see.

The new words

Two of them, shāʾa and arāda, carry the religion in the Qur’ān's use of them: the course gives no meaning of its own for either, and you read them in the verses, with the edition's meaning beside them.

A weak middle letter

Some roots have w or y as their middle letter. In the past form that letter becomes a long ā: khāfa, "feared", is from the root kh-w-f.

In the present form there is a long vowel too: ā here, in yakhāfu, "he fears". Qāla, from lesson 6, is a verb of the same kind, with ū in its present: yaqūlu, "he says".

Yurīdu is the present of arāda, whose root r-w-d has a weak middle letter too, here a long ī. The corpus marks arāda as form IV, which is why its present begins with yu-.

A hamzah

Akhadha, "took", saʾala, "asked", and akala, "ate", each have a hamzah in their root. The hamzah is most often kept, as in yaʾkhudhu, "he takes". In the command of akhadha and of akala it is dropped: khudh, "take!", and kul, "eat!".

Fa-akhadhahu is fa, then akhadha, "took", then hu, "him". The corpus marks this fa as one of cause: what follows comes because of what went before.

The passive

Suʾilat is "she was asked": the past of saʾala with u and i in place of a and a. The corpus marks it passive. The next lesson has more of the passive.

In a sentence

This sentence was written for practice. Akala l-waladu: "the boy ate", verb first.

Reading

واژه‌هایی که پس از این درس به‌طور کامل می‌شناسید نشانه‌گذاری شده‌اند.

Recall

• What does a weak middle letter become in the past form?
• Why does yurīdu begin with yu-?
• How is the passive past of saʾala written?

Answers: a long ā; arāda is form IV; suʾila, "he was asked".

Next

The next lesson teaches eight more verbs, and how the corpus marks the passive and the derived forms of a verb.