Arabic 9 — Finishing al-fāʿil, the ḥiwār «كَيْفَ نَقْضِي العُطْلَةَ؟», an-nidāʾ, and the camping passage الفَاعِلُ وَالنِّدَاءُ وَحِوَارُ العُطْلَةِ وَالتَّخْيِيمُ

The class's introduction to the فاعِل — what it is and where it sits in a sentence — was not recorded. This lesson begins with the rule applied in the drill.

1 · The fāʿil is always مَرْفُوع #

مارَسَ / يُمارِسُ = to practise, to engage in. Who is engaging? النّاسُ, with its ḍammah — that is the fāʿil. الرِّياضَةَ is the thing acted upon, not the doer. "In Tamil we would put it the other way round; in Arabic the doer carries the marker."

(The book prints the fāʿil of every sentence in red, so the word can be seen at a glance.)

2 · Reading the fāʿil off, sentence by sentence #

Mark رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ in particular: the phrase you say every day is a verbal sentence, and its fāʿil is اللهُ — Allah is the one who is pleased. "That is all there is to it."

The rest of the same list #

أَكَلَ عَلِيٌّ الخُبْزَ — "ʿAlī ate the bread." Practise the three shapes of a name off this — مُحَمَّدٌ / مُحَمَّدًا / مُحَمَّدٍ — the ending moves with the role.

(A gap-filling drill follows — يَدْرُسُ … العُلُومَ, "… studies the sciences" — with يَعْمَلُ العامِلُ كَثِيرًا and يَشْرَبُ المَرِيضُ الدَّواءَ among its items.)

3 · Which sentences have a fāʿil at all? — no verb, no doer #

The next exercise is to separate the sentences that contain a fāʿil from the ones that do not. The test:

4 · The trap sentence — يُسافِرُ أَخِي بِالطّائِرَةِ #

The fāʿil is أَخِي ("my brother"). But look at the shape: it is أَخِي, not أَخُو.

• أَخ is one of the nouns that takes a long-vowel ending when it is a مُضاف — أَخُو / أَخا / أَخِي according to case.
• But when what follows it is the ياء المُتَكَلِّم (yāʾ al-mutakallim, the "my"), that yāʾ forces a kasrah before it in every position — whether the word is the doer, or the thing acted upon, or sits after فِي or another preposition. The shape stays أَخِي and does not change.

"Two words joined, and the marker disappears. That is the whole point of that sentence."

5 · Vocabulary for the ḥiwār — قَضَى / يَقْضِي / قاضٍ #

قَضَى / يَقْضِي / قاضٍ (qaḍā / yaqḍī / qāḍin) has several distinct senses to fix:

Hence the lesson's title question:

6 · The ḥiwār — كَيْفَ نَقْضِي العُطْلَةَ؟ #

A mother and father talking about the children.

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

6.1 العُطْلَةُ عَلَى الأَبْوابِ — the idiom #

عَلَى الأَبْوابِ = "at the doors" = just around the corner, about to arrive. Said of Ramaḍān too: رَمَضانُ عَلَى الأَبْوابِ. "It is said elegantly, sideways — not 'it will come tomorrow' but 'it is standing at the door.'"

6.2 Kunyah etiquette — يا أَبا أَحْمَدَ / يا أُمَّ أَحْمَدَ #

Notice how the wife addresses her husband: not by his name, but يا أَبا أَحْمَدَ — "O father of Aḥmad." He answers يا أُمَّ أَحْمَدَ — "O mother of Aḥmad."

• A woman is not called by her personal name in public; a teacher would not simply call out "Khadījah!" across a class either — he would use a respectful form of address.
• This is a cultural habit of the Arabs and a mark of respect. Only those who are very close, or family, use the given name. Among themselves women will say ʿĀʾishah, Zaynab, Maryam — but the public form of address is the kunyah. Sri Lanka has its own versions of the same thing.

6.3 يا لَهُ / يا لَها مِن … — the exclamation #

The husband replies:

(Drilled in §9.)

The mother then asks: كَيْفَ سَيَقْضِي أَوْلادُنا العُطْلَةَ؟ — "How are our children going to spend the holiday?"

6.4 نادَى and ناقَشَ — calling the children in #

The mother: فِكْرَةٌ طَيِّبَةٌ — "a good idea."

6.5 نُرِيدُ آراءَكُمْ — and each child's answer #

رَأْي (raʾy) = opinion, view; plural آراء. And رَأَى / يَرَى in the sense "I think, in my view" — أَرَى = "I am of the opinion that …"

The mother closes: عُطْلَةٌ سَعِيدَةٌ يا أَوْلادُ! — "A happy holiday, children!"

6.6 The true/false drill #

6.7 The five comprehension questions, answered #

"You should be able to answer without looking back at the text."

7 · Interlude — a nashīd on the Hijrah #

A nashīd connected with the Prophet's Hijrah. Its refrain is the Qurʾānic word to Abū Bakr raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu in the cave:

8 · How to study this — stop translating into Tamil #

If you read it properly, everything comes with it — the vocabulary, the grammar — and you can render it in Tamil too. What is the use of memorising a translation? The information won't stick and you won't have understood it. In English and in Sinhala each of you reads and understands directly; if you read a big book in Arabic and then have to go back into Tamil for the meaning, you are stuck. Get to that point with Arabic.

9 · يا لَهُ مِن … drilled #

The pattern: يا لَهُ / يا لَها مِن + an indefinite noun in the genitive + an adjective.

So when you meet this in a text, know at once: something is being marvelled at — whether in admiration or in alarm.

10 · النِّداء — the vocative #

A grammar rule to take from the same passage. When you call out — يا زَيْنَبُ، يا أَوْلادُ، يا فاطِمَةُ، يا بَدْرُ — note two things about the word after يا:

1. No الـ (alif-lām). We say يا أَوْلادُ, never yā al-awlādu.

2. No tanwīn. It does not take -un / -an / -in: يا زَيْنَبُ, not yā Zaynabun.

يا is the particle of calling — حَرْفُ النِّداء / ياءُ النِّداء — and the person called is the مُنادَى (munādā). "Fix those two points and you have the rule."

The second half of the rule — a مُضاف مُنادَى becomes مَنْصُوب #

The exercise #

The same vocative in the Qurʾān #

11 · The reading passage — التَّخْيِيم (camping) #

The vocabulary first:

11.1 Why everyone needs some form of تَرْوِيح #

At the very least one day a month, alongside our work, we need something that relaxes us. If a person cannot relax, he cannot study either — a relaxed mind is what makes the rest possible. When you have no appetite even for the syllabus book, that is when to read a book that genuinely interests you.

This matters especially as we get older. Some reach old age with no way at all of passing the time — nothing they enjoy, nothing to occupy them. Good acts of worship kept up will carry a person; where there is nothing, life becomes hard. So have things now that keep the heart content: worship, likewise reading, likewise meeting a group of friends now and then. (And some need nothing at all — the grandchildren are the entertainment.)

11.2 The passage, line by line #

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

(Some spend five days shut in and want out; others say "we've been out five days — I want two days at home." The two pull in opposite directions and neither knows how to handle the other. It is a difference in mentality, and it lies behind a great many domestic problems.)

#### حَيْثُ — three senses to fix

(Off يَخْتَلِفُ: a مَسْأَلة خِلافِيّة is a disputed question, one on which views legitimately differ and both stand — and اِخْتِلاف (a difference of opinion) is not the same as خِلاف in the sense of a quarrel. "Some will insist there is only one view, but that is because they know only one madhhab." Don't confuse the two.)

#### قَدْ — two opposite senses

You have met قَدْ in قَدْ أَفْلَحَ المُؤْمِنُونَ. قَدْ has two opposite senses, and which one you get depends on the verb after it:

Here, with the muḍāriʿ, the time in camp may be one night — and sometimes it will be many days.

#### نَقِيّ

نَقِيّ = clean, pure. رَجُلٌ نَقِيٌّ — a pure man; نَقِيُّ القَلْبِ — pure of heart. Same root as the duʿāʾ:

11.3 Pitching tents, and what people carry #

11.4 Food at the camp #

(For some, the cooking is the joy of the trip: a teacher who does all the cooking himself — "you lot enjoy yourselves and eat on time" — once cooked fifteen kilos of fish in one enormous pot for about thirteen people on a small trip to Hambantota, and was completely in his element.)

Next: once the tarwīḥ unit is finished, الحَياةُ الزَّوْجِيَّة (al-ḥayāt az-zawjiyyah) — married life: how problems arise, how they are solved, how to speak.