Introduction to Nahw and Sarf (Arabic Grammar)

This unit incorporates modern and classical Arabic as well as grammar. This unit takes students from zero background in Arabic to develop a systemic understanding of the two key sciences that help us decipher the structure of sentences in Arabic i.e. Nahw (Syntax) and Sarf (Morphology). Examples from the Prophetic narrations will be employed as examples of the rules, hence students will be familiar the vocabulary and sentence structures of our Prophet SAW.

Level 1 Arabic is the first of the courses and it incorporates an excellent introduction to the basics of the Arabic Language.

Who is it for?

You must be able to read the Qur’an fluently. You will need to commit to 4 hours of contact time per week and at least a further 2 hours of personal study. Students who cannot read or write Arabic should join the Beginners Arabic and Quran.

Topics covered

In Module 1, the topics below will be covered in conjunction with selected chapters from books such as Ten Lessons & Introduction to Modern Arabic and tailor made worksheets to help students apply their knowledge of the grammar concepts and develop a broad vocabulary:

• Important terms relevant to the study of al-Nahw (Ism’, fi’l, harf, ma’rifah, nakirah, etc);
• The definite and the indefinite;
• The sun and moon letters;
• Common forms of the detached personal and demonstrative pronouns;
• Important terminology relevant to the study of sarf
• The classification of verbs: perfect, imperfect, imperative; triliteral, quadriliteral, the simple and derived; sound and irregular forms of the verb;
• The perfect active positive verb from simple triliteral roots;
• The Masculine and the Feminine nouns;
• The singular, dual and plural;
• Introduction to the cases: the 3 cases, the nominative, the accusative and the genitive; declension using vowels and letters; and the diptote;
• Derived forms of the triliteral verb;
• Using a dictionary;
• The perfect active positive verb from derived triliteral forms;
• The active and passive, positive and negative forms of the past tense verb;
• The mudhari’ (imperfect) verb: active, passive, positive, and negative forms from simple and derived roots.
• Al-Murakkab al-Tawseefi (the adjectival phrase) and common adjectives
• Al-Idhafah