Nahw Meer: An English Guide to Arabic Sentences

About Nahw Meer: An English Guide to Arabic Sentences

What is Nahw? Ilm un Nahw is the science that teaches us how to join Nouns, Verbs, and Particles to form complete sentences and what the vowel of the last letter of each word should be.

This science started from the time of Omar bin al-Khattab RA when one of the Bedouins read part of the Ayah 3 of Surah At-Tauba:
﴾أَنَّ اللهَ بَرِئٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِيْنَ وَرَسُوْلُهُ﴿
with a Kasrah at the end as in رَسُوْلِهِ instead of Dammah as in رَسُوْلُهُ. This changed the meaning from “that Allah and His prophet are free from (dissolve) obligations to the polytheists” to “that Allah is free from (dissolve) obligations to the polytheists and His prophet”. The Bedouin said if Allah dissolves His obligations to His prophet, so do I. After this incident, Omar RA ordered that rules of Nahw be created.

Why this book? First, Allama Jurjani, the author of Nahw Meer, needs no introduction. His masterful book has been studied for centuries, including today in many schools in the Indian subcontinent and other parts of the world. Its original language is Persian and there are several translations in Arabic and Urdu, but very few in modern English. I have tried to faithfully translate the book in modern English with some re-organization and brief additional explanation.