Idafa in Arabic: Mudaf, Mudaf Ilayh and Qur'an Examples

Idafa (also spelled idafah or idaafa) is the Arabic possessive construction: two nouns placed side by side so that the second owns, defines or describes the first, as in rabbi l-'alamin, 'Lord of the worlds'. The first noun, the mudaf, never takes al- or tanwin. The second, the mudaf ilayh, is always genitive.

You meet an idafa in almost every line of the Qur'an, starting with bismi llah. This guide explains the two parts, the three rules that make the construction work, how definiteness, pronouns, duals and adjectives behave, and how to spot an idafa in the mushaf yourself, using real ayat rather than textbook sentences.

What is idafa in Arabic?

Idafa is a grammatical construction that joins two nouns so that the second one specifies the first, and it is usually translated with 'of' or with an apostrophe s. The word comes from the verb adafa, 'he added' or 'he attached': the second noun is attached to the first, and the idafa construction behaves almost like a single word. The Quranic Arabic Corpus, a grammar database of the Qur'an, describes it as a possessive, or genitive, construction relating two nouns. In the ordinary idafa both parts are nouns (ism, one of the three building blocks of Arabic).

What are the mudaf and mudaf ilayh?

The mudaf is the first noun of an idafa, the thing that is owned, defined or described, and the mudaf ilayh is the second noun, the one it is attached to. In bismi llah, ism ('name') is the mudaf and Allah is the mudaf ilayh: the name of Allah. A simple way to remember the order is that English can say 'Allah's name', but Arabic always says 'name Allah', with the owner second.

What are the rules of idafa?

Idafa has three core rules: the mudaf drops al-, the mudaf drops tanwin, and the mudaf ilayh is genitive. Almost everything else in this guide follows from those three.

No al- and no tanwin on the mudaf

The mudaf loses both markers because it takes its identity from the word after it. Kitabun means 'a book' and al-kitabu means 'the book', but in kitabu t-talibi, 'the student's book', the word kitabu needs neither: the student already tells you which book. Adding al- (al-kitabu t-talibi) or tanwin (kitabun t-talibi) breaks the idafa, and an Arabic speaker would hear it as two separate ideas rather than one phrase.

The mudaf ilayh is always genitive

The second noun of an idafa is always genitive (majrur), whatever happens to the first. For a single noun that usually means a kasra (-i) or, if indefinite, a double kasra (-in); for a masculine plural it means the -ina ending, as in al-'alamina; and an attached pronoun counts as genitive too. If these vowel marks are new to you, our guide to the harakat: fatha, kasra, damma and sukun explains them from the beginning.

The mudaf can be in any case

The mudaf itself can be nominative, accusative or genitive, because its case comes from its job in the sentence, not from the idafa. The phrase rasulu llah, 'the Messenger of Allah', shows this in three different ayat, while Allahi, the mudaf ilayh, stays genitive every time.

Is an idafa definite or indefinite?

An idafa is definite when the mudaf ilayh is definite and indefinite when the mudaf ilayh is indefinite: the last word decides for the whole phrase. Bi-rabbi n-nas (114:1) is 'in the Lord of mankind', definite because an-nas has al-. Names and attached pronouns count as definite too, so rasulu llah is 'the Messenger of Allah' and rabbuka is 'your Lord'. When the last word is an ordinary noun with tanwin, the whole phrase is indefinite; a name such as Quraysh can carry tanwin and still be definite.

How do pronouns make 'my', 'your' and 'his' in Arabic?

Adding an attached pronoun to a noun is the most common idafa of all, and it is how Arabic says 'my', 'your', 'his' and 'her'. The noun is the mudaf and the pronoun is the mudaf ilayh, so the noun drops al- and tanwin in the usual way. The last ayah of Surah al-Kafirun has two of them.

Dinukum is dinu ('religion') plus -kum ('your', plural). Dini at the end of the ayah means 'my religion': the pronoun -i ('my') is carried by the kasra under the final nun. In both, the noun has no al- and no tanwin, exactly as the rules require.

What happens when idafas are chained?

An idafa can be chained, with each mudaf ilayh becoming the mudaf of the next noun, and only the last word of the chain may take al- or tanwin. To translate a chain, start from the first word and add 'of' each time. Surah al-Fatihah has one in its fourth ayah.

Why do duals and plurals drop their nun in an idafa?

Duals and masculine plurals drop their final nun when they are the mudaf, because that nun does the job that tanwin does on a single noun, and the mudaf cannot carry tanwin. Yadani means 'two hands', but at the start of Surah al-Masad it becomes yada. Masculine plurals behave the same way: muslimuna ('Muslims') becomes muslimu in muslimu l-'alam, 'the Muslims of the world'.

Where does the adjective go in an idafa?

An adjective describing either noun of an idafa comes after the whole construction, never between the two nouns, and it matches the case of the noun it describes. Surah ar-Rahman shows this in two ayat that end almost identically.

In 55:27, dhu ('Owner of') is nominative, so it describes wajhu, the Face, the nominative subject. In 55:78, dhi is genitive, so it describes rabbika, 'your Lord', the genitive mudaf ilayh. Grammatical analyses of the Qur'an (i'rab) read the two ayat exactly this way, and one vowel tells you which noun the description belongs to. The same principle explains bismi llahi r-rahmani r-rahim: ar-rahman and ar-rahim are genitive because they describe Allah, the mudaf ilayh.

How do you spot an idafa in the Qur'an?

You can spot an idafa in the mushaf by looking for a noun with neither al- nor tanwin that is followed directly by a genitive noun, or that carries an attached pronoun. These five steps turn that into a habit.

Notice the pronunciation as you read them aloud. In bi-rabbi n-nas the l of al- disappears into the nun, because nun is a sun letter (our guide to sun and moon letters explains why), while in bi-rabbi l-falaq the l is heard. A ta marbuta on a mudaf is read as t, so the name of the second surah is suratu l-baqarah, not surah al-baqarah.

What mistakes do learners make with idafa?

The idafa belongs to nahw, the part of grammar that deals with how words work together in a sentence; our explainer on sarf vs nahw shows where it fits. Once you can see it, whole phrases of every page of the mushaf start to make sense, and our guide to how much Arabic you need to understand the Qur'an maps out what to learn next. If you would like someone to take you through it ayah by ayah, you can find an Arabic teacher of your choice who teaches Qur'anic grammar.