4 Shortcuts on How to Identity Jumlatul Ismiyyah in the Quran

When it comes to the Quran I was an illiterate for 2 decades . This might be alright for a revert but where I come from not knowing how to read the Quran in your 20s makes you feel like undercover police in the mafia. You are always guarding your secret.

So it drove me away from religious gathering I don’t have to pretend as if I can read the Quran. After learning a little bit of arabic grammar, I realised  one thing. Just because somebody can read the Quran fluently they can also be illiterate when it comes to the message of the Quran.

The Quran has been made easy for us, this can be seen time and time again when you  study Arabic. One of the examples that demonstrate this,  is the study of  sentences in the Quran. 

People have this misconception that an ayah is a sentence. A sentence can be an Ayah but not all Ayah are sentences. An Ayah can be a combination of letters, like Alif, Lam, Min in Surah Al Baqarah. It also can be one word like Ar Rahman in Surah Rahman. It can also be a fragment which is more than a word but less than a sentence an example would be also from Surah Ar Rahman second sentence which Alamal Quran. Of course much of the confusion is differentiating between whether an Ayah is a sentence or collection of sentences or just a fragment. 

Now there are two types of sentences that keep cropping up in  the Quran, and that is noun based sentences Jumlatul Isimiyyah and verb based sentences Jumlatul fi’liyah. We are only concerned with Jumlatul Ismiyyah

Sounds complicated right? Actually there are 4 amazing shortcuts that can make you differentiate, whether an Ayah is a fragment or a sentence.

INDEPENDENT ARABIC PRONOUN

You know you are looking at a complete sentence when there is the word is  or of or both in a particular set of words. But hang on a minute  both words are and are invisible, so how are you supposed to see them when it is not there. Think of these two words like the angels that write your good and bad deeds. You can’t see them but you are never alone. Now let’s get to the cool stuff. 

Whenever there is an independent pronoun, you can assume there word is although you can’t see it is always present. So what are the independent pronouns? You can go to “Memorising 1300 Quranic Words in five minutes” it is all in the green table. 

Independent pronouns are words like huwa (he is), huma  (Both of them are), hum (They are), hiya (She is) huma (Both of them are) hunna (They (feminine) are , anta (You are) antuma (Both of you are) antum (You all are), anti (You  are)  antuma (Both of you (feminine) are) antunna (You all are), ana (I am) nahnu (We are). So everytime you come across these words assume the word comes after them either has the word is or are. And they are more than just a fragments , they are a complete sentence.

HARF NASB

Another way to tell Jumlatul Isimiyyah is when there is a harf nasb. There are 8 words that if you see it it automatically makes the word after it has an is, are or am. They instantly become Jumlatul Ismiyyah. There are 8 words that occur in the Quran 1464 times, and these words make the word after it nasb i.e the word after it will have a kasrah.As in the example below innal insana. The meaning of the first two words are indeed mankind  but we should assume that the meaning to be indeed mankind is.

When they hand you the pocket size Surah Yaseen I would pray that I got one with transliteration. Unfortunately most of the time, I would get the one with Arabic text only because all the copies with transliteration. 

POINTERS

You should also add an is whenever you see words that point to something there are six of them, which are hadza, hadzihi, dzalika, tilka, haulae, haulaeka. Whenever you see this word one thing that you have to remember is the word after it is followed by the letters Alif lam than it is a fragment. If there is no alif lam you should ad an is are or am after second word of the pointing words. An example would be, hadza Al Kitab means this book which is an incomplete sentence. But if the phrase is hadza kitab it means This is a book

PROPER NOUN FOLLOWED BY COMMON NOUN

Whenever you see a proper noun followed by a common noun, you should add an an is are or am after the proper noun. How do you know if a word is proper, the short explanation is if the word has Alif lam at the beginning then it is proper. The detail explanation is here “7 Types of Proper Noun in the Quran”

An example from the Quran would be WaAllahu Wasiun . The word Allahu is one of the 7 types of proper nouns because it is a proper name and Wasiun has no Alif laam in front of it . So it is common. So the meaning is Allahu is vast. It is a complete sentence. 

So that is a little bit about recognising sentences in the Quran