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Pointing Nouns (اَسْماءُ الإِشَارَةِ)

There's 2 types of pointing nouns (aka indicative pronouns e.g. "this", "that" etc): for things nearby and things farther away:

number/tense singular dual plural
رفع هٰذَا هٰذَانِ هٰؤُلَاءِ
نصب هٰذَا هٰذَيْنِ هٰؤُلَاءِ
جرّ هٰذَا هٰذَيْنِ هٰؤُلَاءِ

Masculine pointing nouns for nearby things

number/tense singular dual plural
رفع هٰذِهِ هٰتَانِ هٰؤُلَاءِ
نصب هٰذِهِ هٰتَيْنِ هٰؤُلَاءِ
جرّ هٰذِهِ هٰتَيْنِ هٰؤُلَاءِ

Feminine pointing nouns for nearby things

number/tense singular dual plural
رفع ذَاكَ أَو ذٰلِكَ ذَانِكَ أُلَائِك
نصب ذَاكَ أَو ذٰلِكَ ذَيْنِكَ أُلَائِك
جرّ ذَاكَ أَو ذٰلِكَ ذَيْنِكَ أُلَائِك

Masculine pointing nouns for far away things

number/tense singular dual plural
رفع تَاكَ أَو تِلْكَ تَانِكَ أُلَائِك
نصب تَاكَ أَو تِلْكَ تَيْنِكَ أُلَائِك
جرّ تَاكَ أَو تِلْكَ تَيْنِكَ أُلَائِك

Feminine pointing nouns for far away things

Aside

ذَاكَ is found in classical texts, not modern texts.

Also, originally the indicative pronouns (in the first table) were ذَا, ذَانِ etc (i.e. without the هّا). But you don't see this nowadays either.

Note

In the Quran, you'll sometimes see words like ذٰلِكُمَا, ذٰلِكُمْ etc. This is fine, it doesn't affect the meaning. And the pronoun at the end is based on the following word e.g. ذٰلِكُمَا رَبُّكُمَا - "that is the Lord of you two".

اسم الإِشَارة / مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ

You can make part of a sentence like e.g. "this book" or "this book of mine". There's 2 parts that make these up:

  1. اسم الإِشَارة - this is the noun of pointing e.g. "this", "that"
  2. مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ - this is the object being pointed to

You say "this book" by saying هٰذَا الْكِتَابُ (the 2 words must be in that order):

Type of part of compound مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ اسم الإِشَارة
الْكِتَاب هٰذَا

You say "this book of mine" by saying كِتَابُكُمْ هٰذَا:

Type of part of compound اسم الإِشَارة مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ
هٰذَا كِتَابُكُمْ

Note

Here, the اسم الإِشَارة must come after, not before the مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ . The moodhaaf/moodhaaf-ilay compound has such a strong link that the اسم الإِشَارة has to come after.

Impact of a harf-jarr

When a word that's a harf-jarr comes before a اسم الإِشَارة / مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ compound, then both the اسم الإِشَارة and the مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ go into the state of جرّ . An example (from Arabic Tutor) is تَلْكَ اَلْبُيًوْتً لِذَيْنِكَ اَلْرَّجُلَيْنِ - "those houses are for those 2 men", where "for those 2 men" is an example of this rule.

Making sentences

You can make sentences with pointing nouns like e.g. "This is a book" or "This is the book" or "This is the book of Zayd". These are all mubtada-khabar.

You say "This is a book" by saying هٰذَا كِتَابٌ :

Type of part of sentence خبر مبتدا
كِتَابٌ هٰذَا

You say "This is the book" by saying هٰذَا هُوَ اَلْكِتَابُ :

Type of part of sentence خبر مبتدا
هُوَ اَلْكِتَابُ هٰذَا

Aside

In these sentences, the مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ is essentially implied (aka مُقَدَّرٌ). You could say these 2 sentences with explicit مُشَارٌ إِاَيْهِ by saying "هٰذَا الشَّيْئُ كِتَابٌ" and "هٰذَا الشَّيْئُ هُوَ الكِتَابٌ". But you wouldn't normally talk like that.

You say "This is the book of Zayd" by saying هٰذَا كِتَبُ زَيْدٍ :

Type of part of sentence خبر مبتدا
كِتَابُ زَيْدٍ هٰذَا

You can add emphasis to this sentence by adding a pronoun. e.g. to say "This is the book of Zayd", you'd say هٰذَا هُوَ كِتَبُ زَيْدٍ .

Some more words to learn

Also, here's some more words to remember the meaning of (they just get used in sentences with no particular rules on their usage):

  • كَذَالِك - "similarly"
  • هٰكَذَا - "in this way"
  • هٰهُنَا - "here"
  • هُنَا - "here"
  • هُنَاكَ - "there"