المقدمة الآجرومية
al-Muqaddima al-Ājurrūmiyya
The Ajurrumiyya — foundations of Nahw
The first matn of Nahw, read chapter by chapter: speech and its three parts, the four states of iʿrāb, and the three great lists — what is raised, what is opened, what is lowered.
8 lessons
The set text
- المقدمة الآجروميةAl-Muqaddima al-Ājurrūmiyya
A few pages that hold the whole of Nahw in outline — memorised first, understood after.
- شرح الكفراوي على الآجروميةSharḥ al-Kafrāwī ʿalā al-ĀjurrūmiyyaRead alongside it
The commentary read with the matn: it supplies the examples the matn is too terse to give.
By the end of it
- Give the ḥadd of every term in the matn in the matn's own wording.
- Parse a simple sentence completely: word, class, case, sign, and governor.
- List the marfūʿāt, the manṣūbāt and the makhfūḍāt from memory.
Lessons
باب الكلامSpeech and its three parts
“Speech is the utterance composed, useful, and by convention.” It is of three parts and no more: noun, verb and the particle that comes for a meaning — and each is known by its own signs.
ReadingBāb al-kalām, with the signs of the noun and the verb.
Recording to followباب الإعرابThe four states of iʿrāb
The definition on which the science turns: the change that comes over the ends of words because of the governors entering upon them, uttered or intended. Its states are four: rafʿ, naṣb, khafḍ, jazm — and nouns take three of them, verbs three.
ReadingBāb al-iʿrāb.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
باب معرفة علامات الإعرابThe signs of each case
Rafʿ has four signs (ḍamma, wāw, alif, nūn); naṣb five (fatḥa, alif, kasra, yāʾ, the dropping of the nūn); khafḍ three; jazm two. This chapter is memorised whole — nothing after it can be parsed without it.
ReadingBāb maʿrifat ʿalāmāt al-iʿrāb; bāb al-muʿrabāt.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
باب الأفعالThe verbs, the nawāṣib and the jawāzim
The verb is three: past, always built on fatḥ; imperative, always built; and the muḍāriʿ, which alone is muʿrab — marfūʿ until one of the four nawāṣib puts it in naṣb or one of the jawāzim cuts its ending off.
ReadingBāb al-afʿāl.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
باب مرفوعات الأسماءThe marfūʿāt
Seven are raised: the fāʿil, the nāʾib al-fāʿil, the mubtadaʾ, its khabar, the ism of kāna, the khabar of inna, and the follower of a marfūʿ. The list is the spine of the matn.
ReadingBāb al-marfūʿāt: al-fāʿil, al-mubtadaʾ wa'l-khabar, kāna and inna.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالفَاعِلThe doer (grammatical subject of a verb)المُبْتَدَأThe subject of a nominal sentenceالخَبَرThe predicate
باب التوابعThe followers: naʿt, ʿaṭf, tawkīd, badal
Four words take the case of the word before them rather than a case of their own: the adjective, the conjoined, the emphasiser and the substitute. Parse the head and the follower parses itself.
ReadingBāb al-naʿt, al-ʿaṭf, al-tawkīd, al-badal.
Recording to followباب منصوبات الأسماءThe manṣūbāt — fifteen of them
The object, the maṣdar, the two adverbs of time and place, the ḥāl, the tamyīz, the exception, lā of absolute negation, the vocative, the object of purpose, the object of accompaniment — and the followers of each.
ReadingBāb al-manṣūbāt, in full.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالمَفْعُول بهThe direct objectالمَصْدَرThe verbal noun
باب مخفوضات الأسماءThe makhfūḍāt and the iḍāfa
Only three things lower a noun: a preposition, an annexation, or following a lowered word. And the iḍāfa is of two meanings — “of” and “from” — the closing chapter of the matn.
ReadingBāb al-makhfūḍāt — the end of the matn.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
Entries covered by this course
And then
Ibn Hishām's matn with his own commentary: everything the Ājurrūmiyya asserted is now argued, qualified and evidenced — and the exceptions are named.
Open the course