Lesson 13 of 16 · The patterns behind the words
Done, doing, do it
الْمَاضِي وَالْمُضَارِع وَالْأَمْر
After this lesson: Tell the three verb tenses apart by their shape.
Arabic verbs come in three shapes. The past (māḍī) is the bare form: khalaqa, 'he created'. The present (muḍāriʿ) adds a prefix — ya-, ta-, a-, na- — as in yaʿlamu, 'he knows'. The command (amr) drops the prefix and often adds an opening alif: uʿbud, 'worship'; qul, 'say'.
The present form covers both 'he knows' and 'he will know'. Context, or a particle like sa- or sawfa, decides which.
Because the prefix tells you who is acting, the present tense is where a great deal of the Qur'an's directness comes from: naʿbudu is one word for 'we worship'.
In the Qur'an
إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ
iyyāka naʿbudu wa-iyyāka nastaʿīn
You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.
Notice. Both verbs are present tense with the na- prefix: 'we'.
فَسَبِّحْ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّكَ وَٱسْتَغْفِرْهُ
fa-sabbiḥ bi-ḥamdi rabbika wa-staghfirh
Then glorify your Lord with praise, and seek His forgiveness.
Notice. Two commands in a row, both with no prefix — the mark of the amr.
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 marks a present-tense verb?
Sabbiḥ and istaghfir are which shape?
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.