1.2.

1 FRAGMENTS- IDHAAFAH PART I

- To understand the concept of fragments
Learning
- To understand the idhaafah
Objectives

Lesson Review

Now that we have completed our study of the four properties of the , it is time to study how
these s work together. In other words, we will now study fragments. A fragment is
something that is more than a word and less than a sentence.

Lets look at some fragments:

The car of Muhammad

Our classroom

These are fragments because they are not complete ideas or thoughts. A sentence offers a
complete thought. For example:

The car of Muhammad is nearby.

Our classroom looks organized.

In the two fragments above, each has an of in it. The first is obvious but the second has a
hidden of as well. Another way to write our classroom is classroom of ours.

There are three kinds of ofs in English. We need to understand the English before the Arabic:
1. The of that you can see
a. Example: The car of Muhammad: This is the easiest one to find.
2. The of of possession
a. Her, his, my, our, your, and their
b. There is always a hidden of when these words are used. We just need to
rearrange them to find the of
i. Examples (note that they mean the same thing):
1. her notebook becomes notebook of hers
2. my watch becomes watch of mine

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3. The of in an apostrophe
a. Example: Allahs house; this is the same thing as house of Allah. The word with
the apostrophe always goes after the of.
i. Abdullahs computer becomes computer of Abdullah
ii. Faadhils bag becomes bag of Faadhil

English has three ways of using of but in Arabic they are all the same. In Arabic, there is only
one way of saying of: by using an
(Idhaafah).
The
(Idhaafah) has 2 parts:
1. (Mudhaaf)- the word before of
2. (Mudhaaf ilayh)- the word after of

(Mudhaaf) and a
In Arabic, we never write of. It doesnt exist. We just have a
(Mudhaaf ilayh). The of is implied to be between the two.

There are a few rules about
that we need to remember:
1. Two parts: the and the
2. Nothing comes between the and
.
3. The is always:
a. Light
b. Unable to take
4.
is always:
a. In the status. Recall that we learned in Unit 1.2.1 that is the word after of.
Now we see that its because the is actually the word after of.

Lets look at the fragment . Notice that the comes first and the is second.
As you can see, the
is light and has no . Also, the
is in the status, so this is

an
.

and
When trying to figure out if two words are , ask yourself:
1. Is the light, and does it have ?
a. If it is light and does not have , it passes the test. Move onto checking the
.
2. Is the in the status?
a. If it is, then the and the
come together to form a proper
.

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3. If any one of the categories do not match, it does not qualify as an

.

Lets try some examples. For the following, determine if the fragment qualifies as an
. If so,
explain how.

1.

2.
3.

Answers:

1.
a. First we look at the . Is light? Yes, it does not have tanween. Does it
have ?No. So far, it looks okay.
b. Next we look at the . Is in the status? No, it is in the status, so
this is not an .

2.
a. is light and does not have . So far, it looks okay as a .
b. Is in the status? Yes it is, so this is a correct , making it a correct
.
3.
a. Lets look at . It is both light and has no . Furthermore, the word is in
the status. Therefore, this is a correct .

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