Arabic 11 — ʿAlayka bi-dhāti d-dīn — the marriage dialogue, and عَلَيْكَ بِـ · ذو / ذات · غَيْر · لا النّافِية عَلَيْكَ بِذاتِ الدِّينِ

1 · Two words to start from: المَوْت / الحَياة, and الزَّوْج #

زَوْج also carries the sense of a pair — two of a matched set.

2 · Can a noun qualify another noun? #

The question that drives the grammar of this lesson. صِفة (ṣifah) is an adjective — a word that comes as a description of a noun, and agrees with it: جَميلَةٌ (beautiful), كَبيرَةٌ (big), صَغيرَةٌ (small).

Now look at the names of institutions:

الإِسْلام is itself a noun, not an adjective. So how does it come to describe الجامِعة?

3 · The نِسْبة — you turn the noun into an adjective #

You cannot attach a bare noun to another noun as a ṣifah. You give it the نِسْبة ending first, and then it works:

This is a rule already studied — bring it back to mind and revise it. It is the title of the unit.

4 · عَلى + كَ = عَلَيْكَ #

The unit opens with a حِوار, and before going in, take one phrase from a ḥadīth that every student will have heard:

عَلى is a preposition, and a preposition carries no meaning standing alone — it joins to what follows. Here عَلى + كَ → عَلَيْكَ (ʿalayka), "upon you".

5 · الكَلِمة الجامِدة — the frozen word #

But عَلَيْكَ is now to be split off and treated as a single word in its own right. A word of that kind is called:

Two more of them:

• آمين (āmīn), said after a duʿāʾ — its sense is "O Allah, accept that supplication." It comes from the same field as أَمانة, but as a base word it is nothing on its own; it is only ever said as آمين.
• حَيَّ عَلى (ḥayya ʿalā), as in حَيَّ عَلَى الصَّلاةِ — "come, hurry to it." It too does not change for feminine, masculine or plural.

6 · عَلَيْكَ carries the force of الزَمْ #

It is what you say when you lay something on someone as a binding instruction. So:

Do not translate it flatly as "upon you." That is the word's shape, not its use.

7 · ذو — the possessor of something #

The second construction. ذو (dhū) joins to a following noun, and that noun takes kasrah, because it is a مُضاف إِلَيْهِ:

It works with the أَلِف لام and without it:

8 · ذات — the feminine, and ذاتُ النِّطاقَيْنِ #

ذو is the masculine. The feminine is ذاتُ (dhātu).

The example given is أَسْماء raḍiyallāhu ʿanhā, named at the time of the Hijrah:

نِطاق is a waist-wrapper / sash; النِّطاقَيْن is two of them. She was given the name because she tore her own waist-wrapper in two and used it to tie up the provisions.

So the phrase reads: عَلَيْكَ بِذاتِ الدّينِ — "keep to the one who has دين" — hold this in view when you marry. These are the words of Rasūlullāh ﷺ.

9 · The ḥiwār, read straight through #

10 · Now the same dialogue, word by word #

قَلِقٌ — and قَلْقَلة #

قَلِقٌ (qaliqun) — you have met the root in tajwīd, in قَلْقَلة, and the idea is the same: agitation, unsettledness. قَلِقٌ is one who is disturbed, anxious, tense — whose mind is unquiet. أَنْتَ قَلِقٌ يا وَلَدي — "my son, there is a disturbance in you."

ما بِكَ؟ — and never ما لَكَ؟ #

أُريدُ الزَّواجَ · وَجَدَ → أَجِدُ #

الزَّواج (az-zawāj) = marriage. أُريدُ, from أَرادَ / يُريدُ = "I want".

Then the verb pattern worth keeping:

So وَلا أَجِدُ = "and I do not find."

The ladder: بِنْت · جارِية · فَتاة · اِمْرَأة #

المُناسِبة, and why الفَتاةَ takes fatḥah #

المُناسِبة = suitable, fitting. And note the vowel: in لا أَجِدُ الفَتاةَ المُناسِبَةَ, الفَتاةَ is the مَفْعول بِهِ — the object — so it carries fatḥah.

مُناسِب vs مُناسَبة — two different words #

And مُناسِب takes لِ after it:

لَيْسَ conjugates #

هٰذِهِ لَيْسَتْ مُشْكِلَةً — "this is no problem at all." لَيْسَ changes with the person:

The feminine plural #

فَتاة → فَتَيات, and the adjectives follow it into the same feminine plural: كَثيرات, مُناسِبات.

تَعْرِفينَ · عَرَفَ · مَعْرِفة #

هَلْ تَعْرِفينَ واحِدَةً مُناسِبَةً؟ — he is asking his mother, so the verb is feminine: تَعْرِفينَ, not تَعْرِفُ. عَرَفَ = "he knew"; the noun is مَعْرِفة = knowledge, knowing — as in مَعْرِفةُ اللهِ.

بِنْت · ابن · بْن #

For a female, بِنْت; for a male, بْن / ابن — فاطِمة بِنْت صالِح, مُحَمَّد بْن …. And in a chain of narration the distinction does work:

• ابن written out shows the man is that person's own son.
• بْن may be his own son, or a grandson / further descendant.

This matters in ḥadīth, because a narrator can be ascribed to a forefather rather than to his actual father — and on that basis a report can be rejected.

11 · A digression: the fabricators, and the rijāl literature #

A great many ḥadīths were fabricated — invented reports put into circulation on sectarian grounds, on political grounds, for economic motives, out of wars, and for other causes.

Against that, the imams compiled the biographies of the narrators — the rijāl literature.

And within it stands one fact: among those who fabricated ḥadīth there is not a single woman. No woman's name appears among the fabricators — while women narrators are many.

12 · غَيْر — the negating word #

Instead of an adjective, Bilāl puts غَيْر in front: هٰذِهِ غَيْرُ مُناسِبَةٍ — "she is not suitable."

You know غَيْر already from the line:

حَسْبي = "enough for me" — حَسْبُنا اللهُ, "Allah is sufficient for us"; حَسْبي اللهُ, "for me". And ما في قَلْبي غَيْرُ اللهِ = "there is none in my heart other than Allah."

غَيْر serves masculine and feminine alike — غَيْرُ جَميلٍ, غَيْرُ جَميلَةٍ.

Two uses worth having:

• The Qurʾān uses غَيْرُ صالِحٍ — "not righteous" — of a prophet's son.
• The ḥadīth critics use it of narrators: rather than saying a man is ṣāliḥ, they say غَيْرُ فاسِقٍ — "he is not corrupt." You do not say outright "he is a good man"; you say "he is not a bad man." Asked about someone, that is a legitimate way to answer.

13 · لا النّافِية — the لا of absolute negation #

رَيْب = doubt; لا = there is not; فيهِ = in it. Do not render it loosely: the force is not a single doubt in it.

The same shape, applied:

14 · ما رَأْيُكَ في …؟ — with في, never عَنْ #

رَأْيٌ = an opinion, a view, from the sense "he saw / he held".

Fix the pattern once and you will not have to labour over each one.

15 · أُسْرة, and saying where you are from #

أُسْرة = family; غَنِيّة = rich; فَقيرة = poor. The same مِنْ pattern, said of yourself:

16 · سَمِعَ vs اِسْتَمَعَ #

Two senses to keep apart:

Which is why the Qurʾān says, of the recitation:

There the word is اِسْتَمِعوا, because you are to attend. But سَمِعْتُ أَنَّهُ ماتَ — "I heard that he died" — is not listening; the news simply reached you. So سَمِعْتُ أَنَّها غَيْرُ جَميلَةٍ = "I have heard that she is not beautiful."

17 · ذاتُ مالٍ وَجَمالٍ — and why it is جَمال, not جَميل #

ذات appears again, exactly as in §8: ذاتُ مالٍ = a woman of wealth; ذاتُ جَمالٍ = a woman of beauty. (Masculine: ذو مالٍ, ذو جَمالٍ.)

So it is ذاتُ جَمالٍ, never dhātu jamīlin. And you would not say ذاتُ فَقيرٍ — فَقير is itself an adjective and stands on its own.

18 · الحَسَب وَالنَّسَب #

Both are words that occur in the ḥadīth literature:

19 · حَقَّقَ and السَّعادة #

So يُحَقِّقُ السَّعادَةَ = "it produces happiness."

20 · إِذا أَرَدْتَ السَّعادَةَ فَعَلَيْكَ بِذاتِ الدّينِ #

أَرادَ = "to want, to will" — the same root as إِرادةُ اللهِ, the will of Allah. So إِذا أَرَدْتَ السَّعادَةَ = "if you want happiness" — and then what must you do? فَعَلَيْكَ بِذاتِ الدّينِ, with عَلَيْكَ in exactly the binding sense of §6.

21 · أَحْسَنْتِ — and the ḥadīth the dialogue closes on #

أَحْسَنْتِ (aḥsanti, with the feminine ‑تِ, because he is addressing his mother) = "you have done well — you have said it exactly right." A word of praise for the other person.

Then the ḥadīth:

ظَفِرَ = "to win, to prevail, to gain." So اظْفَرْ بِذاتِ الدّينِ = "win the one who has religion" — prevail by taking the woman of dīn.

22 · تَرِبَتْ يَداكَ #

تُراب (turāb) = dust, earth. So تَرِبَتْ يَداكَ is literally "may your two hands be [covered] in dust" — an imprecation-shaped phrase: your hands come to nothing; you are ruined, left in want. It is said in the manner of a curse, and the force here is: if you do not take the woman of dīn, your two hands will be in the dust.

23 · From the textbook #

إِنَّ · أَنَّ · لكِنَّ, with attached pronouns. Three of this family stand in the printed dialogue, all with pronouns stuck to them:

All three put the noun after them in naṣb — and when that noun is a pronoun, it simply attaches. إِنَّ opens a statement ("indeed…"), while أَنَّ comes inside a sentence after a verb like samiʿtu ("I heard that…"). Bilāl uses both, one line apart.

The conditional إِذا … فَـ. In إِذا أَرَدْتَ السَّعادَةَ، فَعَلَيْكَ بِذاتِ الدِّينِ:

1. إِذا is followed by a māḍī verb — أَرَدْتَ — even though the meaning is future. The past form after idhā does not mean past time.
2. The answer opens with فَـ. When the jawāb is not a plain verbal sentence — and ʿalayka bi-… is not — the فَـ is required.

زَيْنَبَ is a diptote. In ما رَأْيُكَ في زَيْنَبَ بِنْتِ عَبْدِ اللهِ؟ the name takes fatḥah after في rather than the kasrah you would expect, because it is مَمْنوع مِنَ الصَّرْف — it takes no tanwīn and takes fatḥah in place of kasrah.

A standard name for عَلَيْكَ بِـ. §5–6 call it a كَلِمة جامِدة carrying the force of الزَمْ. In the grammarians' usual terminology the same construction is an اسْم فِعْل أَمْر — a noun standing in for an imperative. The two descriptions agree about how it behaves; only the label differs.

The printed wording. The textbook prints ماذا بِكَ؟ for ما بِكَ؟, and gives Bilāl's first rejection as إِنَّها فَقيرَةٌ، لا مالَ لَها — لا مالَ لَها is the لا النّافِية of §13.