Kerala SSLC Arabic Oriental cheat sheet

Sentence types: jumlah ismiyyah begins with a noun and has mubtada' + khabar; jumlah fi'liyyah begins with a verb and has fi'l + fa'il (+ maf'ul bihi).

Case endings: raf' (dammah) for fa'il, mubtada', khabar; nasb (fathah) for maf'ul bihi, khabar of kana, ism of inna; jarr (kasrah) after prepositions and as mudaf ilayhi.

Diptotes (mamnu' min al-sarf) take fathah instead of kasrah in jarr and are unmarked with tanwin; causes include feminine proper nouns, foreign names, and the pattern af'al.

Sound masculine plural: raf' with waw + nun, nasb and jarr with ya + nun; sound feminine plural takes dammah in raf' and kasrah in nasb and jarr.

Broken plural is treated as a singular feminine noun for agreement: verbs and adjectives take feminine singular form, e.g., al-kutub jadidah.

Verbal forms: Form I fa'ala; II fa''ala (intensive/causative); III fa'ala (mutual); IV af'ala (causative); V and VI tafa''ala/tafa'ala (reflexive); VII infa'ala; VIII ifta'ala; IX if'alla; X istaf'ala (seeking).

Kana and its sisters (asbaha, amsa, zalla, bata, sara, laysa) make the khabar mansub; inna and its sisters (anna, ka'anna, la'alla, la'ita, lakinna) make the ism mansub.

Idafah: mudaf never takes tanwin or the definite article; mudaf ilayhi is always majrur; the whole construct is definite if the mudaf ilayhi is definite.

Root system: most words reduce to a three-letter root; identify the root to infer related meanings, e.g., k-t-b gives kataba, kitab, katib, maktab, maktabah.

Question words: man (who), ma/madha (what), ayna (where), mata (when), kayfa (how), limadha (why), kam (how many), hal (yes/no particle).

Relative pronouns: alladhi (m sing), allati (f sing), alladhina (m pl), allati/allati (f pl); the relative clause follows the definite noun it modifies.

Common prepositions and their effect: fi (in), 'ala (on), ila (to), min (from), bi (with/by), li (for), 'an (about), ma'a (with), bayna (between) - all govern the genitive.

Comprehension strategy: scan the passage for the question's key noun or verb, then read the sentence before and after it to fix the referent of pronouns such as huwa, hiya, hadha, tilka.

Synonyms and antonyms often appear in paired passages; common pairs include kabir/saghir (big/small), qadim/jadid (old/new), sahl/sa'b (easy/difficult), qarib/ba'id (near/far).

Numbers: 3–10 take the opposite gender of the counted noun (thalathatu kutub), while 11–99 keep the masculine form with a masculine counted noun; 100 and 1000 are invariable.

Pre-Islamic poetry (al-shi'r al-jahili) is preserved in the Mu'allaqat; the qasidah opens with the nasib (love prelude), then the rahil (journey), then the main theme of praise (madih) or tribal pride (fakhr).

The Qur'an is the central prose model: its rhetorical inimitability (i'jaz) and features such as qasas (narrative), amthal (parables), and tashbih are standard syllabus topics.

Hadith literature: each hadith has isnad (chain of narrators) and matn (text); the major collections are the Sahihayn of al-Bukhari and Muslim, plus the four Sunan.

Al-Jahiz (d. 868 CE) wrote Kitab al-Hayawan and al-Bukhala'; his prose style is known for digression, humour, and muqaddimah with rhetorical balance.

Modern Arabic literary revival (al-nahdah) is associated with writers such as Taha Husayn (al-Ayyam), Tawfiq al-Hakim (drama), and Jubran Khalil Jubran (prose poetry, The Prophet).

Rhetorical figures to identify in set texts: tashbih (simile), isti'arah (metaphor), tibaq (antithesis), jinas (paronomasia), and saj' (rhymed prose).

Poetic metre ('arud): the bayt has two halves (sadr and 'ajuz) with a fixed taf'ilah pattern; al-khalil ibn Ahmad codified the sixteen metres, of which al-tawil, al-basit, and al-kamil are most common in school texts.

Arabic word order: verb–subject–object is the default in verbal sentences; the subject follows the verb and the verb stays singular even with a plural subject that comes after it.

Translate Malayalam/English 'is/are' into Arabic with a nominal sentence (no copula): 'the book new' = al-kitabu jadidun, not by inserting a verb.

Definiteness must be matched: an indefinite predicate in a nominal sentence is normally delayed, so 'there is a book on the table' = 'ala al-tawilati kitabun.

Idiomatic connectors for composition: wa (and), thumma (then), lakin (but), li'anna (because), fa (so), idhan (therefore), 'ala al-raqm min dhalik (nevertheless).

Punctuation in Arabic: comma '،' and question mark '؟' differ from Latin forms; the hamzah and tashdid must be written in formal composition.

Formal letter structure: al-mursil (sender), al-mursal ilayhi (addressee), al-tahiyyah (greeting), al-mawdu' (subject), al-khatimah (closing) with wa al-salam.

Paraphrase rule: keep technical nouns (computer, telephone, school) either transliterated or rendered with an established Arabic equivalent (hasub, hatif, madrasah) - do not mix both in one sentence.

Five pillars (arkan al-Islam): shahadah, salah, zakah, sawm, hajj; the shahadah is the declaration 'la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah'.

Salah: five daily prayers - Fajr (2 rak'ah), Zuhr (4), 'Asr (4), Maghrib (3), 'Isha (4); wudu' (ablution) is a precondition, and tayammum substitutes when water is unavailable.

Zakah is due on wealth held for one lunar year above the nisab, at 2.5 percent; the nisab is commonly given as the value of 85 g of gold or 595 g of silver.

Sawm: fasting from dawn (fajr) to sunset (maghrib) in Ramadan; the pre-dawn meal is suhur and the breaking meal is iftar; the sick and travellers may make up missed days.

Hajj rites in order: ihram, tawaf around the Ka'bah, sa'y between Safa and Marwah, standing at 'Arafah on 9 Dhul-Hijjah, then Mina with the stoning of the jamarat and the sacrifice.

Qur'an structure: 114 surahs; the longest is al-Baqarah (286 ayat) and the shortest is al-Kawthar (3 ayat); surahs revealed in Makkah are called Makkiyyah, in Madinah Madaniyyah.

Islamic calendar: 12 lunar months beginning with Muharram; key dates include Ramadan (fasting), Shawwal 1 ('Id al-Fitr), Dhul-Hijjah 10 ('Id al-Adha), and Rabi' al-Awwal (Mawlid).