Breakdown of ذلك القائد ذو قلب كبير وعقل ذكي.
الal
the
وwa
and
كبيرkabîr
big
ذكيzakî
smart
ذلكzâlika
that (masculine)
قائدqâ'id
commander / leader / driver (of a vehicle)
ذوdhû
possessor of, with
قلبqalb
heart
عقلaql
mind
Questions & Answers about ذلك القائد ذو قلب كبير وعقل ذكي.
Why use ذو here instead of عنده to mean "has"?
While عنده or له are used for physical possessions or relationships (like having a car or a brother), ذو (meaning "possessor of" or "endowed with") is used in formal Arabic to describe intrinsic characteristics, qualities, or traits. It perfectly fits describing someone's heart or mind.
Why is the word ذو spelled with a Waw here rather than ذا or ذي?
ذو belongs to a special group of words called the "Five Nouns" whose vowels change depending on their grammatical role. Here, it is the main predicate of the sentence (telling us information about the subject, "that leader"). Predicates are in the nominative case, which takes the letter Waw (ذو). If it were the object of a verb, it would be ذا, and after a preposition, ذي.
Why do the words قلب (heart) and عقل (mind) not take the definite article ال?
The word ذو always acts as the first part of an Idafa (possession/genitive construction). The noun following it is the second part of the Idafa and is typically indefinite when describing a general trait. Because of this structure, قلب and عقل take the genitive case and do not use ال.
What happens if we remove the definite article from القائد and just say ذلك قائد?
It would completely change the sentence structure. ذلك القائد means "That leader..." as a single subject phrase. If you drop the ال to make it ذلك قائد, it becomes a complete sentence meaning "That is a leader." Here, we need "That leader" to act together as the subject so we can describe his traits using ذو.
Do the adjectives كبير (big) and ذكي (smart) match the leader or the body parts?
They match the specific nouns they follow: قلب and عقل. Since both of those nouns are masculine, indefinite, and in the genitive case (because they follow ذو), the adjectives كبير and ذكي must also be masculine, indefinite, and genitive.
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