مضاف / مضاف اليه (Moodhaaf-Moodhaaf-ilay)¶

مُضَافٌ / مُضَاف اِلَيْه is a construct in Arabic for saying things like "the book of Zayd" (equivalently, "Zayd's book") or "the sin of the Muslim". It's 2 اسم's joined together in a particular way. Here's some examples of it (memorise these to remember quickly how the rules work):

• كِتَابُ زَيْدٍ - "the book of Zayd, aka Zayd's book"
• ذَنْبُ المُسْلِمِ - "the sin of the Muslim"
• ذَنْبُ مُسْلِمٍ - "the sin of a Muslim"

The first اسم is the possession (called the مُضَاف) and the second اسم is the possessor (called the مُضَاف اِلَيْه).

To join the 2 اسم's, the first اسم, e.g. كِتَابٌ becomes كِتَابُ. And the second اسم, e.g. ذَيْدٌ becomes ذَيْدٍ (or just one kasra if the second اسم started with ال).

A few points:

• you always get the مضاف first, followed by the مضاف اليه
• the مضاف i.e. possession never gets a tanween
• the مضاف اليه i.e. possessor always has a kasrah
  • actually, the rule is the possessor is always مَجْرُوْر i.e. in the state of جَرّ; so if the possessor is plural, it won't end in a kasrah (this will make sense once you've gone through the section Rafa, Nasab & Jarr)
• normally the مضاف اليه starts with ال (but not always)
• the مضاف never starts with ال (but it's still considered a definite noun)
• the translation is generally "the x of the/a y"
• it's not always strictly possession, it can be some other "of" sort-of relation
• the مضاف doesn't always have to end with a dhamma. e.g. you can have this sentence كَتَبَ كِتَابَ ذَيْدٍ - "He wrote Zayd's book" - where the مضاف has ended with a fatha as it's the maf'ool.
• مضاف / مضاف اليه doesn't form a complete sentence on it's own

TODO-2 of's