Lesson 5 of 16 · Words joined into phrases
The 'of' phrase
الْإِضَافَة
After this lesson: Recognise two nouns chained together and translate them with 'of'.
Arabic has no separate word for 'of'. It simply places two nouns side by side: the first is the thing, the second is what it belongs to. Mālik yawm means 'Master of a day'; māliki yawmi l-dīn, 'Master of the Day of Judgement'.
Two rules make the phrase recognisable. The first noun never takes al- and never takes tanwīn — it is already tied to what follows. The second noun always ends in -i (the majrūr ending), and it may be definite or indefinite.
Chains can run longer than two: rabbi l-ʿālamīn, māliki yawmi l-dīn. Read them from the front and insert 'of' at each join.
In the Qur'an
مَـٰلِكِ يَوْمِ ٱلدِّينِ
māliki yawmi d-dīn
Master of the Day of Judgement.
Notice. A chain of three: Master — of the Day — of Judgement. Only the last noun carries al-.
إِنَّآ أَعْطَيْنَـٰكَ ٱلْكَوْثَرَ
innā aʿṭaynāka l-kawthar
Indeed We have granted you al-Kawthar.
Notice. Compare: here al-Kawthar carries the article because it stands alone, not inside an 'of' phrase.
Watch out. If you see al- on the first of two nouns, it is not an 'of' phrase — it is a description phrase, which is the next lesson.
Check yourself
Nothing is scored or saved here — answering is how the rule sticks. When you want a score, the same checks are drilled to mastery below.
In māliki yawmi d-dīn, why does mālik not carry al-?
Which ending does the second noun of an 'of' phrase always take?
Word morphology, grammar and syntax trees are shown by the Quranic Arabic Corpus (corpus.quran.com), the annotated linguistic resource developed at the University of Leeds.