The Form I passive participle normally places a strong triliteral root in مَفْعُول: كَتَبَ → مَكْتُوب “write → written,” فَتَحَ → مَفْتُوح “open → opened; open,” and دَرَسَ → مَدْرُوس “study → studied.” The participial pattern map shows its place beside active and derived participles. It profiles the participant affected by an action or the state resulting from that action.
“Passive” does not mean “past tense.” الباب مفتوح describes the door's state and says nothing by itself about who opened it or when. The participle is a noun/adjective: it agrees and declines. Its connection to a verb explains its patient meaning and the complements it can retain.
The strong pattern and its agreement
With a regular transitive root, insert the three radicals into مفعول. Then inflect the result like an adjective or noun.
| Root and verb | Masculine singular | Feminine singular | Typical interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| ك-ت-ب، كَتَبَ | مَكْتُوب | مَكْتُوبَة | written; written item |
| ف-ت-ح، فَتَحَ | مَفْتُوح | مَفْتُوحَة | open; opened |
| د-ر-س، دَرَسَ | مَدْرُوس | مَدْرُوسَة | studied; carefully considered |
| ط-ل-ب، طَلَبَ | مَطْلُوب | مَطْلُوبَة | requested; required; wanted |
| ق-ب-ل، قَبِلَ | مَقْبُول | مَقْبُولَة | accepted; acceptable |
وجدت رسالة مكتوبة على الطاولة.
wajadtu risālatan maktūbatan ʿalā ṭ-ṭāwila.
I found a written message on the table.
ترك الحارس النافذتين مفتوحتين حتى وصول الفريق.
taraka l-ḥārisu n-nāfidhatayni maftūḥatayni ḥattā wuṣūli l-farīq.
The guard left the two windows open until the team arrived.
النتائج المنشورة متاحة في قاعدة البيانات.
an-natāʾiju l-manshūratu mutāḥatun fī qāʿidati l-bayānāt.
The published results are available in the database.
The participle agrees with its noun: feminine accusative رسالةً مكتوبةً, dual accusative النافذتين مفتوحتين, and feminine singular المنشورة with nonhuman plural النتائج. Its verbal history does not override adjective agreement.
Event versus result state
A finite passive verb presents an event and locates it in tense or aspect. A passive participle characterizes a referent. The two can occur together precisely because they do different work.
فتحت الموظفة الباب في الثامنة.
fataḥati l-muwaẓẓafatu l-bāba fī th-thāmina.
The employee opened the door at eight.
فتح الباب في الثامنة، وهو مفتوح الآن.
futiḥa l-bābu fī th-thāminati, wa-huwa maftūḥun l-ʾān.
The door was opened at eight, and it is open now.
التقرير مكتوب، لكنه لم يرسل بعد.
at-taqrīru maktūbun, lakinnahu lam yursal baʿd.
The report is written, but it has not been sent yet.
In فُتح الباب, the passive perfect reports an event. In هو مفتوح, the participle describes a present state. مكتوب strongly suggests a completed writing result here, but the present relevance comes from the nominal sentence and the contrast with لم يرسل بعد, not from a built-in perfect tense.
The state reading can become lexical. مقبول may mean “accepted” after a decision, but also “acceptable” as an evaluation. معلوم from عَلِمَ conventionally means “known,” while مجهول “unknown” is a lexical counterpart. Learn such meanings with their actual usage.
Transitivity and complement restrictions
A direct passive participle normally presupposes a verb with an affected object. كَتَبَ التقريرَ → التقريرُ مكتوبٌ is straightforward. A purely intransitive verb has no direct patient to profile, so you cannot assume that every Form I verb supplies a commonly used مفعول word.
Arabic can nevertheless build established impersonal expressions from verbs that select prepositions. The preposition remains: رَغِبَ في الأمر → الأمرُ مرغوبٌ فيه “the matter is desired,” شَكَّ في الدليل → الدليلُ مشكوكٌ فيه “the evidence is doubtful,” and حَكَمَ على المتهم → المتهمُ محكومٌ عليه “the defendant has been sentenced.” These are not reasons to delete the preposition.
هذه مهارة مرغوب فيها في سوق العمل.
hādhihi mahāratun marghūbun fīhā fī sūqi l-ʿamal.
This is a skill that is sought after in the job market.
بقيت بعض النتائج مشكوكا فيها حتى تكررت التجربة.
baqiyat baʿḍu n-natāʾiji mashkūkan fīhā ḥattā takarrarati t-tajriba.
Some results remained in doubt until the experiment was repeated. (Formal.)
The invariant masculine singular in مرغوب فيها and مشكوكًا فيها belongs to an impersonal participial construction whose resumptive pronoun inside the prepositional phrase refers to the topic. This is different from a directly agreeing attributive adjective such as مهارة مطلوبة “a required skill.”
An agent is usually omitted because the construction foregrounds the affected participant. When a formal text must name the agent, a phrase such as من قبل اللجنة “by the committee” is possible, though often heavier than an active clause.
هذا إجراء مدروس بعناية من قبل اللجنة القانونية.
hādhā ʾijrāʾun madrūsun biʿināyatin min qibali l-lajnati l-qānūniyya.
This is a measure carefully considered by the legal committee. (Formal; the agent phrase is explicit because it matters.)
Weak, hamzated, and geminate roots
Weak radicals reshape مفعول in established ways. A rigid letter-for-letter insertion produces false forms.
| Root class | Verb | Passive participle | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| initial-wāw | وَعَدَ | مَوْعُود | initial radical remains visible |
| hollow-yāʾ | بَاعَ | مَبِيع | contracted; not مبيوع |
| hollow-wāw | قَالَ | مَقُول | contracted with long ū |
| final-wāw | دَعَا | مَدْعُوّ | final wāw is doubled |
| final-yāʾ | رَمَى | مَرْمِيّ | final yāʾ is doubled |
| hamzated | قَرَأَ | مَقْرُوء | final root hamza follows long ū |
| geminate | رَدَّ | مَرْدُود | the two final radicals separate around ū |
السيارتان مبيعتان، لكن نقل الملكية لم يكتمل.
as-sayyāratāni mabīʿatāni, lakinna naqla l-milkiyyati lam yaktamil.
The two cars are sold, but the transfer of ownership is not complete.
تسلم كل مدعو بطاقة تحمل رقم مقعده.
tasallama kullu madʿuwwin biṭāqatan taḥmilu raqma maqʿadih.
Every invitee received a card bearing their seat number.
راجع المحرر النص المقروء في الجلسة والملاحظات المكتوبة بخط اليد.
rājaʿa l-muḥarriru n-naṣṣa l-maqrūʾa fī l-jalsati wa-l-mulāḥaẓāti l-maktūbata bikhaṭṭi l-yad.
The editor reviewed the text read aloud at the session and the handwritten notes.
Iḍāfa and lexicalized relations
A passive participle may enter a fixed or productive iḍāfa whose second member specifies a domain, measure, or respect: محدودُ الصلاحيةِ “limited in validity” and معلومُ المصدرِ “of known origin.” The second noun is genitive because of iḍāfa, not because it is necessarily the agent of the underlying action. The ordinary expression for “handwritten,” by contrast, is مكتوبٌ بخطِّ اليدِ, with a prepositional phrase rather than direct iḍāfa.
رفض المختبر عينة مجهولة المصدر وأخرى محدودة الصلاحية.
rafaḍa l-mukhtabaru ʿayyinatan majhūlata l-maṣdari wa-ʾukhrā maḥdūdata ṣ-ṣalāḥiyya.
The laboratory rejected one sample of unknown origin and another with limited validity.
This construction is an iḍāfa of specification. Reading every genitive after a participle as its doer would reverse the relation. If the agent itself matters, an active clause is generally clearer: كتبت الباحثة التقرير “the researcher wrote the report.”
Common Mistakes
Treating the passive participle as a past-tense verb
❌ الباب مفتوح يحدد أن شخصا فتحه في الماضي القريب.
Incorrect—مفتوح describes a state; it does not independently identify time or agent.
✅ الباب مفتوح الآن، وسيبقى مفتوحا حتى المساء.
al-bābu maftūḥun l-ʾāna, wa-sayabqā maftūḥan ḥattā l-masāʾ.
The door is open now and will remain open until evening.
Regularizing the hollow participle مبيع
❌ الجهاز مبيوع مع ضمان لمدة سنتين.
Incorrect in formal MSA—the established passive participle of باع is مبيع.
✅ الجهاز مبيع مع ضمان لمدة سنتين.
al-jihāzu mabīʿun maʿa ḍamānin limuddati sanatayn.
The device is sold with a two-year warranty.
Dropping a selected preposition
❌ هذه مهارة مرغوبة سوق العمل.
Incorrect for the intended impersonal construction—رغب في retains في: مرغوب فيها.
✅ هذه خبرة مرغوب فيها لدى شركات التقنية.
hādhihi khibratun marghūbun fīhā ladā sharikāti t-tiqniya.
This experience is sought after by technology companies.
Losing adjectival agreement
❌ الرسالتان مكتوب قبل الاجتماع.
Incorrect—a directly predicated participle agrees with feminine dual الرسالتان: مكتوبتان.
✅ الرسالتان مكتوبتان وجاهزتان للإرسال.
ar-risālatāni maktūbatāni wa-jāhizatāni lil-ʾirsāl.
The two messages are written and ready to send.
Key Takeaways
- Strong Form-I passive participles use مفعول and agree like adjectives or nouns.
- They profile an affected participant or result state, not a tense; finite passive verbs report events.
- A direct passive participle normally requires a transitive relation, while established prepositional constructions retain their preposition.
- Weak roots give verified forms such as مبيع، مقول، مدعوّ, and مرميّ; hamzated and geminate roots have their own regular outcomes.
- A genitive in participial iḍāfa can specify domain or respect and should not automatically be interpreted as the agent.
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- Participles of Forms II–XB1 — Build active and passive participles from derived-form imperfect stems and interpret their agreement, complements, and weak-root changes.
- The Maṣdar: Verbal Noun OverviewA1 — Understand how Arabic maṣdars name events, behave as nouns, and preserve the participants of an underlying action.