Arabic Plurals: Sound and Broken, With Qur'an Examples

Arabic plurals come in two main kinds. A sound plural keeps the word whole and adds an ending you can hear: -un or -in, mostly for male people, as in al-mu'minun (the believers), or -at, as in as-salihat (righteous deeds). A broken plural changes the inside of the word, so qalb (heart) becomes qulub (hearts).

You already say Arabic plurals in every rak'ah. Al-'alamin and ad-dallin, both in al-Fatiha, end in -in, the ending of the sound masculine plural. If you can read the Qur'an but the endings still blur past, this page is for you. It covers the three kinds of plural, the dual for two, why the mountains in at-Takwir take a 'she' verb, and how to spot plurals in the short surahs you pray with.

What are the types of plural in Arabic?

Plurals in Arabic come in three kinds (two sound plurals, masculine and feminine, and the broken plural), and there's a separate form for exactly two, the dual. A plural in Arabic means three or more, because two has its own form. The Arabic names tell you how each one works. Salim means whole: the singular stays as it is and takes an ending. Taksir means breaking: the singular is broken open and rebuilt.

How does the sound masculine plural work?

The sound masculine plural adds -un in the nominative, the case of the subject, and -in everywhere else: as an object, after a preposition, and after a word like rabb (Lord of). That switch is part of i'rab, the system of Arabic word endings. Most of these plurals are describing words for male people: believers, those who pray, those who disbelieve.

Al-mu'minun is the subject here, so it ends in -un. In 33:35 the same word sits in a list that follows inna (indeed), and nouns after inna take the object ending, so it becomes al-mu'minin. Both endings fill the short surahs. After ya ayyuha (O), the noun takes -un, as in al-kafirun (109:1). Lil-musallin, 'to those who pray' (107:4), comes after li (to), so it takes -in. And ad-dallin, 'those who go astray', closes al-Fatiha (1:7) with -in.

How does the sound feminine plural work?

The sound feminine plural adds -at, often in place of a ta marbuta: jannah (garden) becomes jannat in 2:25, and salah (prayer) becomes salawat in 2:238. The same ending makes the plural for groups of women. Listen to the opening of 33:35 and you'll hear both sound plurals, pair by pair.

Al-muslimin and al-muslimat, al-mu'minin and al-mu'minat: the same word with a men's ending, then a women's ending. The ayah keeps going like this for ten pairs. Notice that al-muslimat ends in -ti here, not -ta. As an object, the -at plural takes a kasra where you'd expect a fatha. Al-'Asr shows it too: the righteous deeds are what people did, yet the word is as-salihati.

What is the dual in Arabic?

The dual is the Arabic form for exactly two: add -an in the nominative, the case of the subject, and -ayn everywhere else. Jannah (garden) becomes jannatan, 'two gardens', in 55:46, and bahr (sea) becomes al-bahrayn, 'the two seas', in 55:19. English has no dual, so a translation can hide it. When you see -an or -ayn on the end of a noun, think 'two'.

When a word is joined on after the dual, the n drops. Ibrahim's du'a in 14:41 has walidayya: walidayn, 'both parents', with -ya, 'my', added, so the n has gone. The same line has lil-mu'minin, a sound masculine plural after li.

What is a broken plural in Arabic?

Broken plurals in Arabic keep the root letters of the singular but change the vowels around them, and sometimes add a letter: kitab (book) becomes kutub, and jabal (mountain) becomes jibal. Near the end of al-Baqarah, three broken plurals sit side by side.

Mala'ikah (angels) is the plural of malak, kutub of kitab, and rusul of rasul (messenger). None of them takes a sound ending (-un, -in or -at). Each one reshapes the word, and there's no single rule for which shape a word will take. Arabic has dozens of broken plural patterns. Grammar books name each one with ف ع ل standing in for the three root letters, so فُعُول (fu'ūl) means: root letter with u, root letter with a long u, root letter. That's the shape of qulub and nujum. The table shows some common patterns, each with words from the Qur'an.

How do you find the singular of a broken plural?

To find the singular of a broken plural, pull out its three root letters and look for the simpler word built on them. The root letters stay in the same order inside the plural, which is why the three-letter root system of Arabic helps so much here.

Why do plurals of things take a feminine verb?

In Arabic, a plural of things, not people, is often treated like one feminine word, so the verb or pronoun that goes with it is 'she'. At-Takwir shows it five times in a row.

Al-jibal (the mountains) is plural, but suyyirat ends in -at, the past-tense ending for 'she'. The verb's -at is short. It ends in a sukun (ـَتْ), unlike the long -at of noun plurals. The stars, the she-camels, the wild beasts and the seas in 81:2 to 81:6 all get the same 'she' verb. Pronouns do the same. In 2:25 the gardens (jannat) are 'beneath which rivers flow', in Arabic min tahtiha, literally 'beneath her'. A plural of things can also take a feminine plural word, as in ayyaman ma'dudat, 'a limited number of days' (2:184). For the full picture, see how gender agreement works in Arabic.

Why do some Arabic plurals have no tanween?

Broken plurals on the long patterns mafā'il and mafā'īl, such as masajid and masabih, don't take the usual tanween, and without al- or a word joined after them they end in a fatha even after a preposition. Grammar books call these the 'furthest plural' (sighat muntaha al-jumu') and list them among the nouns that don't take tanween (mamnu' min as-sarf). A few that end in a dropped ya, like layalin (nights) in 89:2, are a special case: an -in sound takes the place of the dropped ya.

How can you spot plurals in the surahs you pray with?

You can spot plurals in the surahs you pray with by reading them word by word and checking each ending against the sound plural endings (-un, -in, -at) and the broken plural patterns. Every surah in this table has at least one plural. For the meaning of every line you say in prayer, see what each line of your salah means.

A table shows you the patterns. A teacher who hears you read can stop at a word, ask 'one, two or many?', and show you why. If you'd like that, find a teacher of your choice and try up to 3 teachers free. You don't have to decide today.