Lesson 7 of 16 · Words joined into phrases
Prepositions and what follows them
الْجَارّ وَالْمَجْرُور
After this lesson: Spot a preposition and know what it does to the noun after it.
A preposition (ḥarf jarr) is a small particle that puts a noun into relation with something else: bi (in, with, by), li (to, for), fī (in), min (from), ʿan (about), ilā (to), ʿalā (upon).
It always does two things. It is followed by a noun, never a verb. And it forces that noun into the -i ending: bi-smi, li-llāhi, min sharri, fī ṣudūri l-nās. That pair — preposition plus its noun — is what grammarians call jārr wa majrūr, and it travels through the sentence as a single unit.
Because a preposition guarantees a noun after it, it is also one of your best tools for reading unfamiliar text: whatever follows min must be a noun, whatever its meaning.
In the Qur'an
مِن شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ
min sharri mā khalaq
From the evil of what He created.
Notice. Min forces sharr into its -i ending, giving sharri.
ٱلَّذِى يُوَسْوِسُ فِى صُدُورِ ٱلنَّاسِ
alladhī yuwaswisu fī ṣudūri n-nās
Who whispers in the breasts of mankind.
Notice. Fī ṣudūri is preposition plus noun; ṣudūri l-nās is then an 'of' phrase inside it.
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.
What must come directly after min?
Why is it sharri and not sharrun in min sharri mā khalaq?
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.