Arabic - Do's and Don'ts - Imperative verbs

بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس الرابع و العشرون

السلام عليكم ورَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وبَركاتُه ,  Remember the first ayah revealed to our prophet mohammad  (ﷺ).

اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ

I hope you will be able to translate all of this ayah. i.e

بِاسْمِ	prefixed preposition bi	chapter 8
رَبِّكَ	PRON – 2nd person masculine singular possessive pronoun	chapter 4
الَّذِي	REL – masculine singular relative pronoun	chapter 17
خَلَقَ	3rd person masculine singular perfect verb	chapter 10

You might be knowing the meaning of the word “اقْرَأْ” .  But you may not know that arabic grammar. It’s the command from Allah (swt) asking our prophet (phub) to “Read”.   So in this chapter insha-allah we will learn about command / imperative mood which is used to command to a second person.  i.e Do’s and Don’ts in arabic.

Procedure of making command/address to 2nd person is easy

1. From present tense remove vowel point of last letter and put سكون on it. تَفْعَلُ -> تَفْعَلْ  (Jussive mood).
2. Now we will drop the prefix.  فْعَلْ
3. If after dropping, the first letter is silent and

               . 2nd letter is فتحة or كسرة then add اِ

               . or 2nd letter is ضمة then add اُ

4. If it’s not silent then just don’t do anything. example. قُلْ

           

Therefore the command form of verb (قَرَأَ)

1. make jussive form  ->  يقَرَأَ
2. drop the prefix       ->   قَرَأَ
3. since the first letter is not silent we just add  اِ -> to make it (إقْرَأْ)

Examples:

اِفتحْ	open
اِذهبْ	go
اِفعلْ	do
اُعبدْ	worship
اُنظُر	look
أُدْرُسْ	study

Exercise:

Go through the 80% quran pdf file and read all the verbs and check its command format.

example is show in figure below highlighted.

Let’s practice the command format.  Translate the below sentences and memorize these as they might be useful for our daily usage. Let’s ask the kid to do some daily actions.

Hints	Arabic commands
wake up	أيها الولد، إنهَض من النوم صباحا
worship	وأعبُد ربك
eat and drink	وكُلْ واشرب
wear	وإلبِس ثيابك
go	وإذهَب إلى المدرسة
sit	وأجلِس في الصف بالآدب
read and understand	إقرأ  وأفهِمه
return	ثم أرجِع أيها الأولاد إلى البيوت
remove	وأخلِع ثياب المدرسة
wash	وأغسِل وجوهكم وايديكم
	Plural
worship	واعبدوا ربكم
drink	واشربوا الشاي
depart / leave	فاخرجوا إلى الميدان
play	والعبوا مع أصدقائكم
return	ثم ارجعوا قبل المغرب
write	واكتبوا فروض المدرسة
eat and drink	وكلوا واشربوا من رزق الله

There is conjugation table to learn for imperative verb too.  Memorize it like other tables.

The method of constructing the other conjugations is as follows.

• Prefix the conjugations with لِـ. This لام may have a سكون in certain situations
• This لـ will do to the verb what لم did to it

Remember chapter 23- Jussive mood we studied the table.  {Lam , lamma,  in, li, la}  We need to follow those rules of jussive mood when prefixing with “Li”.

Imperative Active

لِيَسْمَعُوْا (they should listen)	لِيَسْمَعَا (they should listen)	لِيَسْمَعْ (he should listen)
لِيَسْمَعْنَ(they should listen)	لِتَسْمَعَا (they should listen)	لِتَسْمَعْ (she should listen)
اِسْمَعُوْا (listen)	اِسْمَعَا (listen)	اِسْمَعْ(listen)
اِسْمَعْنَ (listen)	اِسْمَعَا (listen)	اِسْمَعِيْ (listen)
	لِنَسْمَعْ(we should listen)	لأَِسْمَعْ(I should listen)

Imperative Passive

لِيُسْمَعُوْا (they should be heard)	لِيُسْمَعَا (they should be heard)	لِيُسْمَعْ(he should be heard)
لِيُسْمَعْنَ(they should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعَا (they should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعْ (she should be heard)
لِتُسْمَعُوْا (you should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعَا (you should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعْ (you should be heard)
لِتُسْمَعْنَ (you should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعَا (you should be heard)	لِتُسْمَعِيْ (you should be heard)
	لِنُسْمَعْ(we should be heard)	لأُِسْمَعْ(I should be heard)

Exercise:

Read this beautiful hadith and find out the imperative verb used

Its meaning …..

One of the ayah that makes my cry during the Eid’al adha (عيد الأضحى) is the incident of Ibrahim (عليه السلام ) in Surah Saffat : 101 where ibrahim (عليه السلام) says to his son

"O my son, indeed I have seen in a dream that I [must] sacrifice you, so see what you think."

and The reply given by his son was Amazing.

قَالَ يَا أَبَتِ افْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ ۖ سَتَجِدُنِي إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ

Insha-allah we’ll look at the don’ts of the arabic in next chapter.