1. In this lesson we will Insha Allah cover a new principle which is called the principle of Possessive Expression in English and Al-Idhafa in Arabic. This principle is applied when two nouns are joined together to make one sentence. A possessive expression. One noun is the "possessor" called "Mudhaf Ilaihi" while the other is the "possessed" called "Mudhaf" in Arabic. For example, if we say teacher's book, "the teacher" is the possessor and "the book" is possessed.

2. In English this type of expression is constructed with the preposition of or using a letter s with a comma before it i.e., 's. The examples of such type of constructions are

• The book of Hamid, or

• Hamid's book.

3. In Arabic however, the possessed noun (e.g., book) comes before the possessor so it would literally read "Book teacher's".

4. Let us analyze an example below and we will explain how the rules are applied:

   • Kitaab -ul-Mudarrisi

• The first part is the possessed noun (called Mudhaf - مُضَاف) - Kitaab (book) as we have already discussed.  The rules of the possessed noun are:

• a) Although kitaab is not definite - in other words, 'al' (the) - does not come before the noun, it is implied.  Hence this means 'the book' and not 'a book' even though ‘al’ is not written before kitaab.

• b) The possessed noun can be in any case (genitive - with kasra, accusative - with fatha, or nominative - with dhamma). We do not need to worry about this at the moment, in normal case it is nominative so it ends with a dhamma but if preceded by a preposition it takes the genitive case so it ends with a kasra.

• c) Since the possessed noun is definite therefore it can not take tanween i.e., it can not take double dhamma

• The second part is the possessor (called Mudhaf Ilaihi - مُضَاف إلَيه) - Al Mudarrasi (the teacher).  The possessor can be either:

• a) Definite or indefinite (e.g. Al-mudarasi or mudarisin - the teacher or a teacher)

• b) The possessor is always in genitive case (therefore the last letter always takes a kasra or kasratain).

Example:		Rule:
Arabic:	English:
كِتَابُ الْطَالِبِ	The book of the student	The Possessed noun (Mudhaf) takes different cases while the mudhaf ilaihi takes the genitive case only.
عَلى مَكْتَبِ الْمُدَرِّسِ	On the desk of the teacher
بَابُ البَيْتِ	The house's door	The mudhaf is definite by position while the mudhaf ilaihi can either be definite or indefinite.
إِمَامُ مَسْجِدٍ	The Imam of the mosque

• Carefully read the following text and take a particular look of the vowel endings of the words: