Diptotes (ممنوع من الصرف)

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Diptotes (ممنوع من الصرف)

Imam Marc Manley

May 21

 

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Grammatical Rule: Diptotes (ممنوع من الصرف)

Definition: A diptote (in Arabic: mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf) is a noun that does not take tanwīn and is not declined with a kasrah, even in the genitive case (حالة الجر). Instead, it takes a fatḥah in both the genitive case and the accusative case (حالة النصب)—unless it is defined by al- or is part of a noun-noun conjunction (iḍāfah).

Let’s take an example sentence from Dr. ʿAbd al-ʿĀlim al-Quraydī (الدكتور عبد العالم القُريدي), the former Head of the Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Arts, in Zuwārah, Libya. He is also a member of the Association of Libyan Scholars and his al-al-ʿAqā’id al-Thamānūn fī Shahādatay al-Islām ʿinda Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿa (The Eighty Doctrine On the Two Testimonies of Islam According to Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah), in which he writes in the opening,

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إلى كل مسلمٍ غَيور على عقيدةِ سَوادِ سَلَفِهِ - من مُفسرين ومُحدِّثين وفقهاء ولغويين وأدباء ومُؤرخين وقادة وفاتحين - يحب أن يكون من الذين مَدحهم الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم في حديثه ، فعن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم:

بدأ الإسلام غريباً وسيعود غريباً كما بدأ غريباً

“To every Muslim who is passionately protective of the creed of the majority of his pious predecessors—of exegetes, hadith scholars, jurists, linguists, literary figures, historians, leaders, and conquerors—who loves to be among those whom the Messenger of Allāh praised in his statement, ‎ﷺ. On the authority of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), the Messenger of Allah ‎ﷺ:

‘Islām began as something strange, and it will return to being strange just as it began, so glad tidings to the strangers’.”

Why words like ʿulamā’ and fuqahā’ are diptotes:

Words like ʿulamā’ (scholars) and fuqahā’ (jurists) fall under the category of:

1. Sound broken plurals (جمع تكسير) on the pattern of “fuʿalā’” (فعلاء):

   1. These are part of what grammarians call ṣīghat muntahā al-jumūʿ (ultimate plural forms), such as:

      1. ʿulamā’ (عُلَمَاء);

      2. fuqarā’ (فُقَرَاء);

      3. anbiyā’ (أَنْبِيَاء)

      4. ruḥamā’ (رُحَمَاء)

2. Any noun on this pattern is grammatically diptote and thus:

   1. In the nominative case: ends with -u (e.g., ʿulamā’u);

   2. In the accusative: ends with -a (e.g., ʿulamā’a);

   3. In the genitive: ends with -a (e.g., ʿulamā’a) — not with -i;

So when do such words get a kasrah instead?

For diptotes like ʿulamā’, they can take a kasrah in the genitive case only if:

1. They are definite (with al-);

2. Or they are part of a possessive construction (iḍāfah);

Here’s some examples:

In our sentence above,

“من مفسّرين ومحدّثين، وفقهاء، ولغويين، وأدباء”

• mufassirīn, muḥaddithīn, lughawiyyīn: end in fatḥah because they are fully declinable (tripotes) nouns, specifically masculine sound plurals.

• fuqahā’, udabā’: these and in a fatḥah because they are diptotes—while they are in the genitive case they still take a fatḥah due to being on the morphological form (وزن صرفي) of fuʿalā’ as well as being indefinite and not in iḍāfah.

For finally, can you guess what the last word in the ḥadīth that Dr. al-Quraydī quotes is?

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