Arabic 12 — Hal taḥduthu mushkilātun bayna z-zawjayn — the dual, and the unit on married life هَلْ تَحْدُثُ مُشْكِلاتٌ بَيْنَ الزَّوْجَيْنِ؟

This unit of Book 2 Part 1 is taken in the textbook's own order: the title and the words in it, the four discussion questions printed under it, and then the unit's four-paragraph reading passage, worked sentence by sentence.

1 · The title, and why it says الزَّوْجَيْنِ and not الزَّوْجانِ #

Start with the heading itself:

Every hard word in the unit is already in that line. Take them one at a time.

2 · المُثَنَّى — the dual #

You know this one. To say two of something, Arabic does not use a separate word — it puts الأَلِف وَالنُّون (alif and nūn) onto the singular:

3 · And then alif+nūn becomes yāʾ+nūn #

Recall the singular first. A plain noun in رَفْع (rafʿ, nominative) carries a ضَمّة; the sign of نَصْب (naṣb, accusative) is a فَتْحة; and after a حَرْف جَرّ (a preposition) it carries a كَسْرة.

The dual does something different. In those same two positions — after a preposition, or in naṣb — its أَلِف + نُون turns into ياء + نُون:

The title has the preposition بَيْنَ (bayna, "between") standing in front of it, so the dual must shift:

That single shift is the grammar point of the whole unit. Wherever the passage below puts a preposition before a dual, you will see it again.

4 · حادِثة — an occurrence, an accident #

From حَدَثَ (ḥadatha), "something happened / occurred":

• حادِثةٌ (ḥādithatun) — an occurrence, an incident, an accident
• حادِثةُ سَيْرٍ (ḥādithatu sayr) — a road accident
• ماذا حَدَثَ لَكَ يا أَخي؟ (mādhā ḥadatha laka yā akhī?) — "Brother, what happened to you?"

The unit's own verb تَحْدُثُ (taḥduthu, "arise / occur") is from this same root.

5 · مُشْكِلات — and the plural that is wrong #

مُشْكِلة (mushkilatun) is "a problem." Its plural is مُشْكِلات (mushkilāt).

6 · The four discussion questions #

Printed under the title, to be thought about before the passage is read.

Words in these: لِماذا (limādhā) = "why" · حَلّ (ḥall) = "solving, a solution" · الطَّلاق (aṭ-ṭalāq) = divorce · يَقَعُ (yaqaʿu) = "falls, occurs, takes place."

A model answer to question 2:

اتِّصال (ittiṣāl) = communication, contact · سوء (sūʾ) = badness, poorness.

The answer to question 3 is short: الزَّوْجانِ — the two of them. Whoever the problem belongs to is who must solve it; a problem inside the household is solved by the couple, together, or it does not get solved.

7 · Passage, paragraph 1 — married life, and what the real problem is #

Three parties, each with its own لِـ: لِلزَّوْجِ · وَلِلزَّوْجَةِ · وَلِلأَوْلادِ.

وَمَعَ ذلِكَ (wa-maʿa dhālika) = "and yet · even so · at the same time." Note حَياةِ الزَّوْجَيْنِ — the dual again, this time in iḍāfah, again as يْنِ.

The frequency trio #

Learn them as a set of three, in that order.

عَلَيْنا (ʿalaynā) = "upon us [it is a duty]" — the fuller form is يَجِبُ عَلَيْنا (yajibu ʿalaynā), "it is obligatory upon us." حَقيقة (ḥaqīqah) = truth, reality.

قَدْ — two different jobs #

So قَدْ تَحْدُثُ here carries the same force as أَحْياناً.

خِلاف (khilāf), pl. خِلافات — differences, disagreements. اِخْتِلاف (ikhtilāf), pl. اِخْتِلافات — the same meaning; the two are interchangeable here.

This is the paragraph's point. Two people holding different views is not the problem. لَيْسَتْ (laysat) = "is not." The problem is أَنْ نَعْجِزَ — our inability to solve them.

عَجَزَ and its family #

عَجَزَ / يَعْجِزُ / نَعْجِزُ (ʿajaza) = to be unable, to be incapable.

• عاجِز (ʿājiz) — incapable, unable
• عَجوز (ʿajūz) — an old person: one who has reached an age where he can no longer do things

8 · Paragraph 2 — what young people assume, and what they should know #

شَباب (shabāb) = young people, youth (a plural). Note the construction: كَثيرٌ مِنَ الشَّبابِ ("many of the youth") is not the same shape as الشَّبابُ الكَثيرُ. It belongs with قَليلٌ مِنَ الماءِ (a little water) and كَثيرٌ مِنَ الطَّعامِ (much food).

بِلا (bilā) is بِـ + لا = "without": بِلا خَوْفٍ (without fear) · ذَهَبْتُ إِلى كولومبو بِلا مالٍ ("I went to Colombo without money") · بِلا مُشْكِلاتٍ.

إِذا takes the past tense but means the future #

Both verbs past in form; the sense is future. Now the passage's own sentence:

ثارَ (thāra) = to rise up, flare up, be stirred — ثارَ الغُبارُ (the dust rose up); ثَوْرة (thawrah) = an uprising, a revolution.

رِحْلة طَويلة — a long journey; it is not over in three or four years. السَّبيلُ إِلَى النَّجاةِ — the path to deliverance — هُوَ الحِوارُ: الحِوار (al-ḥiwār), discussion, talking it through. There is no other route.

9 · Paragraph 3 — why problems come from time to time #

مِنْ وَقْتٍ لِآخَرَ (min waqtin li-ākhar) = "from time to time," now and then.

يَعودُ السَّبَبُ إِلى… — a frame worth memorising #

عادَ / يَعودُ = "to return," so literally "the cause returns to…" — i.e. "the reason lies in…". A literary usage; keep it and reuse it:

• Why did he fail the exam? — يَعودُ السَّبَبُ إِلى عَدَمِ مُراجَعَتِهِ لِلدُّروسِ (ʿadam murājaʿah = not revising).
• Why did his business make a loss? — يَعودُ السَّبَبُ إِلى كَسَلِهِ (كَسَل = laziness).

مَرْحَلة (marḥalah) = stage, phase — مَرْحَلَةُ الطُّفولَةِ the childhood stage, مَرْحَلَةُ الشَّبابِ the youth stage. تَزيدُ (tazīdu) = they increase.

The differences are visible from childhood: the clothes, the toys, the games, the way of speaking. And then after marriage people expect the two to think alike. The question is not how to remove the differences but how they are handled — and that handling is الحِوار.

10 · Paragraph 4 — what each side complains of #

شَكا / يَشْكو (shakā / yashkū) = to complain · الشَّكْوى (ash-shakwā) = the complaint · and the phrase يَقومُ الزَّوْجانِ بِالشَّكْوى — "the two of them make complaint."

يَشْكو الزَّوْجُ فَيَقولُ — the husband complains and says:

وَتَشْكو الزَّوْجَةُ فَتَقولُ — and the wife complains and says:

طولَ الوَقْتِ (ṭūla-l-waqt) = the whole time, all the time · الصُّحُف (aṣ-ṣuḥuf) = newspapers · المَجَلّات (al-majallāt) = magazines · الحاسوب (al-ḥāsūb) = the computer.

Go by the lists above, not by a count of how many complaints each side has.

11 · A wisdom on the husband's complaint #

On the husband's complaint زَوْجَتي لا تَسْتَمِعُ إِلَيَّ, a wider lesson: Allah's creation — your family, your household, what is around you — follows a principle: if we do not listen to what Allah says, we should not expect Allah's creation to listen to us. The point is from Ibrāhīm ibn Adham raḥimahullāh, and it is a warning for everyone.

12 · Practice #

Read the passage through several times on your own: your own reading of it is what counts as study.