Exceptional Situations

Sometimes, you think you really have reached an understanding of how things work. You get it. The rules have started to make sense.

And then you realize that no, actually, things don’t work the way you think they do, and everything you once believed is now under question. 

This might happen in a lot of different contexts, but it can happen extremely often when studying the Arabic language, which is notorious for having exceptions upon exceptions. Now, usually, it’s very clear that a given rule has a lot of exceptions, and that it should be treated more like a general guideline than an actual law. However, there are some cases where something really looks like it might be an absolute rule that you can put your trust in… until you realize it’s not.

Here are some exceptional cases for what might have appeared to be exceptionless rules…

Behaviour of attached pronouns

The attached pronoun هُ usually keeps its dhammah diacritic, but notably changes to become هِ (with kasrah) in certain situations, like when the letter before it has a kasrah. For example, rather than saying فِيهُ , the word is changed to فِيهِ , which is a little easier to pronounce.¹ 

One such situation is when هُ is attached to the preposition عَلَىٰ. The resulting combination becomes عَلَيْهِ (with هِ bearing kasrah), a common term which occurs more than 150 times in the Qur’ān. 

Well, it turns out that this pairing doesn’t always give the هُ a kasrah… there is one occurrence in the Qur’ān where عَلَىٰ when combined with هُ gives عَلَيْهُ, where the هُ keeps its dhamma:

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُبَايِعُونَكَ إِنَّمَا يُبَايِعُونَ ٱللَّهَ يَدُ ٱللَّهِ فَوْقَ أَيْدِيهِمْ ۚ فَمَن نَّكَثَ فَإِنَّمَا يَنكُثُ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِۦ ۖ وَمَنْ أَوْفَىٰ بِمَا عَـٰهَدَ عَلَيْهُ ٱللَّهَ فَسَيُؤْتِيهِ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا 

Indeed those who swear allegiance to you, swear allegiance only to Allah: the hand of Allah is above their hands. Then whosoever breaks his oath, breaks it only to his own detriment, and whoever fulfills the covenant he has made with Allah, He will give him a great reward.
[Surah #48 al-Fath, verse 10]

The “t” feminine marker

In the gendered language of Arabic, there are a few ways that a noun can indicate that it is feminine: for example, ending with the letter ة. Now, it’s very well-known that having one of these indicators is not proof that the word truly is feminine (since some masculine words do have these indicators, like the masculine name Usama: أسامة). It’s also well-known that not every feminine word has one of the indicators (for example, the word for “sun”, شَمْس , is feminine, but nothing about the spelling of the word will give that away). There are plenty of cases like this so it’s abundantly clear that this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

One thing, however, that seems to be always true is that when the feminine marker is a “t” suffix, the “t” always comes from the special letter ة, or taa marbuta, and not the normal letter ت. The difference in pronunciation only appears when stopping after a word ending with one of these letters (in the case of ة, the “t” sound changes to a soft “h” sound, while ت retains its “t” sound); however, they are different letters, and only ة comes as the feminine marker.

Except… not always. There are a few words in the Qur’ān that are normal feminine nouns that normally end with the normal ة feminine indicator, but in just a few places, the ة opens up and is actually replaced by the letter ت altogether. Really! Here’s the list of cases I was able to find:

Normal spelling of the word with ة	Word, as appears with ت	Number of occurrences of the word with ت	Locations
نِعْمَة	نِعْمَت	11	2:231, 3:103, 5:11, 14:28, 14:34, 16:72, 16:83, 16:114, 31:31, 35:3, 52:29
رَحْمَة	رَحْمَت	7	2:218, 7:56, 11:73, 19:2, 30:50, 43:32, 43:32
كَلِمَة	كَلِمَت	5	6:115, 7:137, 10:33, 10:96, 40:6
سُنَّة	سُنَّت	5	8:38, 35:43, 35:43, 35:43, 40:85
لَعْنَة	لَعْنَت	2	3:61, 24:7
قُرَّة	قُرَّت	1	28:9
بَيِّنَة	بَيِّنَت	1	35:40
شَجَرَة	شَجَرَت	1	44:43
جَنَّة	جَنَّت	1	56:89

Nouns, Verbs, and Tanween

In Arabic, only nouns can carry tanween. Practically by definition, the tanween is an indicator that a noun is indefinite². Tanween, like the concept of indefiniteness, doesn’t apply to prepositions or verbs. This, I was sure about. It was one thing that I truly, naively, foolishly, ignorantly, and unquestioningly believed. 

But then I came across this verse:

كَلَّا لَئِن لَّمْ يَنتَهِ لَنَسْفَعًۢا بِٱلنَّاصِيَة

No indeed! If he does not cease, We shall seize him by the forelock…
[Surah #96 al-‘Alaq, verse 15]

Yup, it’s a verb. And it has tanween. In the Qur’ān.

And while I was still reeling from that blow, still hovering between the states of shock and denial, I found the second verse in the Qur’ān with a verb that has a tanween (it still shakes me to even write those words):

قَالَتْ فَذَٰلِكُنَّ ٱلَّذِى لُمْتُنَّنِى فِيهِ ۖ وَلَقَدْ رَٰوَدتُّهُۥ عَن نَّفْسِهِۦ فَٱسْتَعْصَمَ ۖ وَلَئِن لَّمْ يَفْعَلْ مَآ ءَامُرُهُۥ لَيُسْجَنَنَّ وَلَيَكُونًا مِّنَ ٱلصَّـٰغِرِينَ

She said, ‘He is the one on whose account you blamed me. Certainly, I did solicit him, but he was continent, and if he does not do what I bid him, surely he shall be imprisoned and humbled.’
[Surah #12 Yusuf, verse 32]

I guess that when it comes to learning Arabic grammar, the one thing I can be sure about is that I can’t be sure about anything… probably with some exceptions.

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1. This word brings back fun memories 🙂 ↩︎
2. Of course, there are exceptions, like proper nouns that are definite but can have tanween. But at least these are still nouns. ↩︎