Arabic 8 — The amr of the mahmūz and muḍāʿaf verb, the p.83 drills, and William Tell فِعْلُ الأَمْرِ مِنَ المَهْمُوزِ وَالمُضَاعَفِ وَقِصَّةُ وِلْيَام تِل

You met the sound verb (sālim) and the eight verb types in Lesson 7. This lesson takes the two remaining ṣaḥīḥ types — the مَهْمُوز and the مُضَاعَف — and their imperatives, then the page-83 imperative drills across every person and number, the graded reading passage وِلْيَام تِل with its vocabulary and grammar, and advice on studying Arabic on your own.

1 · The mahmūz — only the hamzah-first kind behaves differently #

الفِعْلُ الصَّحِيحُ المَهْمُوز (al-fiʿl aṣ-ṣaḥīḥ al-mahmūz) is the sound verb one of whose radicals is a هَمْزة — "a hamzah anywhere, beginning, middle or end" (Lesson 7). Here it gets its verbs, and a narrowing:

Two verbs, both hamzah-first:

• Negating the present is also unremarkable: لَا يَأْكُلُ (lā yaʾkulu) — "he does not eat / he will not eat," exactly the لَا rule from Lesson 7.
• The difference shows in the imperative only.

The imperative: you drop the hamzah, you do not add an alif #

The rule from Lesson 7: strip the ḥarf al-muḍāraʿah, put a sukūn on the end, and — because what is left cannot be started — prefix an alif (hamzat al-waṣl), as in اِقْرَأْ (iqraʾ, "read!").

Now the question: when the first radical is itself a hamzah, do you put another alif on top of it? No. You drop the root hamzah instead.

"That is all there is to it."

The feminine behaves the same way — again no extra alif:

2 · The muḍāʿaf — the doubled verb #

المُضَاعَف (al-muḍāʿaf) — the doubled verb, whose second and third radicals are the same letter, written with a shaddah. (Lesson 7 called it المُضَعَّف; the same category.) Three verbs:

• Second person: تَمُدُّ (tamuddu).
• Past with a pronoun suffix, where the doubling comes apart: مَدَدْتُ يَدِي (madadtu yadī) — "I stretched out my hand."

The feminine plural undoes the shaddah #

The shaddah is broken and the two identical letters are written out separately — the form falls back to the plain sālim shape you already know from Lesson 7 (يَفْعَلْنَ, يَفْتَحْنَ). "Look for it and you will catch it."

The imperative of the muḍāʿaf #

Take the present form and strip it, as before. Do you need an alif here? Not necessarily — because when you put a sukūn on a word that already carries a shaddah, the vowel shifts and the word becomes pronounceable; it comes out with a fatḥah:

(From the same "goodness" root-family: بِرُّ الوَالِدَيْنِ — birru-l-wālidayn, "kindness to parents.")

What comes after this: the verbs that are not sound — the مُعْتَلّ verbs.

3 · أَمْرُ الغَائِب — the command to an absent person #

There is also أَمْرُ الغَائِب (amr al-ghāʾib), the command directed at an absent third person — which Lesson 7's rule ("you can only command the one addressed") seemed to shut out, and which Arabic nevertheless has. "Let him go," "let him come," the way a king issues an order:

This form is taught fully later.

4 · Page 83, Exercise 1 — read the imperatives #

The items below follow the class's line-by-line reading; read the exact wording from the textbook.

"Here we are seeing the imperative again; both are the same thing. We must see a great many of these."

5 · Page 83, Exercise 2 — turn a present sentence into a command #

The task: take a present-tense sentence and convert it to an imperative with the vocative. The items follow the class's line-by-line reading; read the exact wording from the textbook. The worked example printed in the book:

Notice what changes: the verb loses its ḥarf al-muḍāraʿah and takes the hamzat al-waṣl; the subject becomes a vocative with يَا; and the possessive on the object switches from the third person (رَبَّهُ) to the second (رَبَّكَ).

Masculine singular #

(You met اُبْسُطْ in the p.78 swimming text in Lesson 7.)

Feminine singular — the imperative ends in ـِي #

Dual — alif, and the nūn drops #

Masculine plural — wāw joined, nūn dropped #

In the vocative, masculine and feminine plural take the same form of address — the difference shows on the verb.

Feminine plural — the nūn stays #

6 · يَا أَيُّهَا — addressing a group #

Besides يَا زَيْدُ, which names the person, there is يَا أَيُّهَا (yā ayyuhā) — "O you …" — which hails a group or an audience:

This form conveys closeness, as does صَدِيقِيَ العَزِيزُ (ṣadīqiya-l-ʿazīz) — "my dear friend."

7 · The reading passage — وِلْيَام تِل (William Tell) #

A graded story — one of the longer ones in the story-set — read line by line, with its vocabulary and the grammar it carries.

7.1 The opening line #

So: a pleasant, well-loved farmer, and his name was William Tell.

#### Digression: قَرْيَة vs مَدِينَة in the Qur'an

In ordinary usage a place is a قَرْيَة if the population is small and a مَدِينَة if it is large — a million, ten million: that is a city. The two differ by size.

But the Qur'an calls Makkah أُمُّ القُرَى — "the mother of villages" — though Makkah was at that time a trading centre, not a village at all. And in Sūrat Yāsīn the same town is called both: first أَصْحَابَ القَرْيَةِ (36:13), then

So in the Qur'an the two words are not simply a matter of size.

7.2 William Tell's archery #

7.3 The children #

#### التَّصْغِير — the diminutive

Off فِي البُحَيْرَاتِ ("in the lakes"):

That is the diminutive (at-taṣghīr), and Arabic makes it everywhere:

It is the form used for something small, and for a small child affectionately: يَا بُنَيَّ (yā bunayya, "my little son"), from اِبْن.

7.4 Walter, who preferred to go with his father #

That one child was Walter:

مُرَافَقَة = companionship, going along with someone, from رَفِيق (rafīq, companion) — the word of the ḥadīth request:

A رَفِيق is one you go with wherever you go, one you trust — like صَدِيق.

(On a similar-sounding root: مُرَاقَبَة (murāqabah) is the awareness that Allah is watching — we speak of murāqabah of Allah.)

#### أَكْثَرَ مِنْ — the comparative

The construction to note is أَفْعَل … مِنْ, "more … than":

7.5 Walter asks for the bow #

أَعْطَى = to give → أَعْطِنِي, "give me"; جَرَّبَ / يُجَرِّبُ = to try, to test (the verb from Lesson 7's p.78 text — جَرِّبِ الْمَاءَ).

#### The grammar point: the jussive after an imperative

Look at that second verb. When an imperative is followed by a present-tense verb, that verb takes a sukūn — it is majzūm, the jawāb aṭ-ṭalab — and the sense becomes conditional:

So أَعْطِنِي قَوْسَكَ أُجَرِّبْهَا = "give me your bow so that / and then I may test it," with أُجَرِّبْ in the jussive, not أُجَرِّبُ.

7.6 The father's reply #

• يَا بُنَيَّ — the same diminutive as buḥayrah, here for endearment.
• قَوْس is feminine in Arabic — hence كَبِيرَةٌ, not kabīr. There are about fifteen such words that are feminine without any feminine marker.

#### مُنَاسِب and صَالِح — "suitable"

لَا تُنَاسِبُكَ = "it does not suit you"; مُنَاسِب = suitable, fitting. The same idea sits inside صَالِح: we say زَوْجَةٌ صَالِحَةٌ and translate "a righteous wife," but the sense is a fitting, well-matched one. So too الأَعْمَالُ الصَّالِحَاتُ — the deeds that fit the moment, the right deed at the right time:

Taken at the level of a marriage: a very wealthy woman matched with a man of quite different means may simply not fit, and he will suffer for it — that is not ṣāliḥ. Both senses are in the word.

7.7 The promise of a small bow #

And he promises to make him قَوْسًا صَغِيرَةً تُنَاسِبُكَ — "a small bow that suits you."

#### نَكِرَة + صِفَة

The noun قَوْسًا صَغِيرَةً is نَكِرَة (indefinite — no alif-lām), and therefore the clause after it, تُنَاسِبُكَ, is read as an adjectival clause (صِفَة): "a small bow suiting you." Had it carried the alif-lām, the sense would change and the following clause would have to be a relative clause instead.

7.8 Thanking, and waiting #

In Arabic: أَشْكُرُكَ or أَشْكُرُ لَكَ — "I thank you"; أَشْكُرُ اللهَ — "I thank Allah." And the ḥadīth:

#### أَخَذَ + a present verb = "he began to"

An idiom worth having. أَخَذَ alone means "he took," but أَخَذَ followed by a present-tense verb means "he began to / he set about" — it marks the start of an action:

7.9 The surprise #

• أَطَلَّ = to look out, to peep — the way you crane out of a window. Not to be confused with طَلَعَ (ṭalaʿa, "to rise"), as in طَلَعَ البَدْرُ عَلَيْنَا.
• (Another root: وَكِيل = an agent, one put in charge; وَكَّلَ = to appoint an agent; تَوَكَّلَ / تَوَكُّل = to entrust one's affair to Allah.)

Note the hamzah of the question — أَهَذِهِ — which you met with the interrogatives in Lesson 6.

(And: بِرّ = doing good, kindness — بِرُّ الوَالِدَيْنِ.)

7.10 The setting: Switzerland under Austrian rule #

7.11 The fortress, built unpaid #

قَلْعَة = fort — the kind of thing you can still go and see.

You know صَغِيرًا in the singular from the duʿāʾ:

Note that the parents' duʿāʾ is worded in the dual for one's own parents; the collective form is used when a group prays together — اِغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا — and individually اللَّهُمَّ اغْفِرْ لِي ذَنْبِي.

7.12 The villagers made to serve #

• سُكَّان = inhabitants, residents — from سَكَنَ (to dwell), سَاكِن plural سُكَّان. (The Tamil word sukkān, a ship's helm, is itself this Arabic word.)
• حَرَّرَ = to set free; تَحْرِير = liberation — as in رَابِطَةُ التَّحْرِير, a liberation league.

7.13 The farmer driven from his house #

طَرَدَ = to drive out; رَحَلَ = to depart, so اِرْحَلْ عَنْهُ = "clear out of it."

7.14 The hat on the pole #

The governor had his own hat raised high on a tall pole in the village square, and said to two of his men:

• أَعْلِمَا is a dual imperative — the very form drilled on p.83, now met live in a text.
• كُلَّمَا = "whenever, every time" — not one occasion but all of them: كُلَّمَا تَأْكُلُ, كُلَّمَا يَنَامُ, كُلَّمَا مَرُّوا.
• اِنْحَنَى = to bow, to bend the head.
• تَأَكَّدَ = to make certain, from أَكِيد (certain).

7.15 Avoiding the pole #

The villagers, who hated the ruler, were not content to bow to his hat, so some of them changed their route:

The class leaves the story here, before the famous part of the legend — the apple and the shot.

8 · Self-study: what to listen to and where #

Advice on learning Arabic on your own, outside class.

Facebook — short clips. "If we write everything down it stays with us; tomorrow we forget." There are small Arabic pages on Facebook with short clips, 15 to 30 seconds, small everyday matters done as a حِوَار (ḥiwār, dialogue). "Just listening to them and following those pages will get you somewhere."

YouTube — short story videos. Stories from the lives of the Prophets, small incidents, incidents from the lives of the imāms, in 15-minute videos. Watch one two or three times and it sticks. Every Ramaḍān the producers put out a new production, done through the life of a small child, 15–20 minutes a day across the 30 days.

Another producer is "One Way", which comes with English subtitles.

TRT — Turkish historical drama. A Turkish channel with drama serials; Islamic historical dramas are doing well now. One important series is on Yunus Emre — in it, a qāḍī (a judge) studies under a shaykh, is changed, and gives up his post. The Arabic dubbing is good and clear and you get a message besides. One episode runs about 45 minutes.

How to listen. You do not need to catch every word; you need to grasp what they are saying. Listen to Arabic the way you watch a film in a language you only half know — not as though every word must be decoded. Understanding some of it is enough; understanding none of it is still not a reason to stop watching. And listen properly: use decent headphones and good sound. "We only take in what we can follow, so give it the conditions to be followed."

Al Jazeera — تَعَلَّمِ العَرَبِيَّةَ and Media Arabic. "You read news in Tamil and in English — read it in Arabic." Go to the Al Jazeera website, scroll down, and you find تَعَلَّمِ العَرَبِيَّةَ (taʿallam al-ʿarabiyyah, "Learn Arabic") — their Media Arabic section.

• It starts at مُبْتَدِئ (mubtadiʾ, beginner), from the alphabet up: A1, A2, then intermediate, then advanced, with a great many videos and lessons.
• Subtitles are given in English as well, and the text sits in the video's notes, so you can watch with or without the text. It is all free.
• Watch at home and practise; then move up to the short news items. Some universities use this Media Arabic as a syllabus.
• العُنْوَان (al-ʿunwān) = address — "do you know your family's address?" is the kind of thing to ask in practice.

A two-minute Al Jazeera clip to practise on:

"This is good material to study at the intermediate level. Take a summer, an hour a day, and sit with it …"

The fisherman and the shaykh #

One of the short story videos:

The shaykh's counsel: صَلِّ رَكْعَتَيْنِ صَلَاةَ الحَاجَةِ — "pray two rakʿahs as the prayer of need" — and make duʿāʾ that your need be fulfilled. After the two rakʿahs, say:

Then say bismillāh and cast your net. Asked لِمَاذَا أَقُولُ حَسْبِيَ اللهُ وَنِعْمَ الوَكِيلُ؟ — "why should I say it?" — he answers from the Qur'an, of those who said it:

That is Allah's promise to the believers. In the story the fisherman gives his catch away in ṣadaqah to a hungry child and a poor mother, which is itself a اِخْتِبَار (ikhtibār, test) from Allah, and later obtains a loan and opens a shop. Its closing line is the point of it:

9 · Still to come #

• the مُعْتَلّ verbs;
• أَمْرُ الغَائِب in full;
• the ḥāl.