Small words in the Quran

About the guide

What are the sources?

Four, and nothing else:

• The Quranic Arabic Corpus (corpus.quran.com), version 0.4: a word-by-word grammatical analysis of the whole Quran, made by the Language Research Group at the University of Leeds (Kais Dukes, 2009 to 2017) and now maintained by the Quran.com team, under the GNU General Public License. It gives each word's pieces, tags, root and base form. The tag names and terms on this page are quoted from its documentation. We use the copy at github.com/mustafa0x/quran-morphology, which adds four tags (ADDR, DIST, ATT, NV) named only in its README.
• QUL, the Quranic Universal Library by Tarteel (qul.tarteel.ai): the Indo-Pak Arabic text (script 59) and the English under each word (word-by-word translation, resource 92).
• Ibn Hishām, Mughnī al-Labīb ʿan Kutub al-Aʿārīb, edited by Māzin al-Mubārak and Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥamd Allāh (Dār al-Fikr, Damascus, 6th edition, 1985). Digital text from al-Maktaba al-Shāmila (book 6972) via OpenITI (github.com/OpenITI/0775AH). Cited by page as a reference, not quoted.
• Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863–93). Digital text from the Perseus Digital Library (Tufts University), as amended in github.com/quranic-research/lexicon_xml. Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The U.S. Department of Education and The Max Planck Society. The panel quotes Lane's English word for word for the 18 particles Lane wrote full articles on, and says so plainly for the 12 he did not. Perseus's availability statement, verbatim: This text may be freely distributed, subject to the following restrictions:
  • You credit Perseus, as follows, whenever you use the document: Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The U.S. Department of Education and The Max Planck Society.
  • You leave this availability statement intact.
  • You offer Perseus any modifications you make.

Where do the names come from?

Every name and tag on this page is quoted from the documentation of the Quranic Arabic Corpus (corpus.quran.com): tag names from its tagset page, feature terms and prefix descriptions from its morphological features page. For min, fi, ʿalā, ilā and qad the Quranic Arabic Corpus gives all but a handful of occurrences the same tag, so this screen shows how QUL translates the word where it stands alone, quoted exactly. The Arabic and the English are the same as in the Quran word meaning test: Indo-Pak script and the QUL word-by-word translation.

Does the guide add its own explanations?

No. The page shows the Quranic Arabic Corpus's names and tags, QUL's English, Lane's English (quoted word for word), Ibn Hishām's page references, and counts, positions and colours computed from them. It gives no clues or rules of its own. Each view numbers its sources in the text and lists them at the bottom.

Why are the tags in this order?

Tags are listed by how often the Quranic Arabic Corpus gives them.

Is my progress saved?

Your best drill score for each word is kept in this browser only. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no account.

How is Ibn Hishām's Mughnī used?

The guide's particle panel quotes Lane's English word for word. Ibn Hishām's Mughnī al-Labīb is kept as a reference only: where the book treats a particle, the panel says so and gives the page in the edition edited by Māzin al-Mubārak and Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥamd Allāh (Dār al-Fikr, Damascus, 6th edition, 1985), as the OpenITI digital text records it. Nothing from the Mughnī is quoted, translated or summarised here.

It can still get things wrong

The Quranic Arabic Corpus's pieces and tags were matched to the Indo-Pak word boxes by script, with AI assistance, so a piece can land in the wrong place. The guide shows the Quranic Arabic Corpus's tags as given and does not correct them. If something looks wrong, please tell us.