Breakdown of سرق المال ونقل إلى مكان مجهول.
الal
the
وwa
and
إلىilâ
to
مالmâl
money
مكانmakân
place
سرقsaraqa
to steal
مجهولmajhûl
unknown
نقلnuqila
to transport
Questions & Answers about سرق المال ونقل إلى مكان مجهول.
The first word سرق is unvoweled. How do we know it's the passive "was stolen" and not the active "he stole"?
Context is key! If we read it as active (سَرَقَ), it would mean "He stole the money" with the money as the object. But since the sentence is describing what happened to the money itself, we read it in the passive voice by mentally applying the Form I past passive vowels to get سُرِقَ (suriqa), following the "fu'ila" pattern.
What case ending does المال (the money) take in this sentence?
It takes the nominative case, so it is pronounced المالُ (al-mālu). In an Arabic passive sentence, the original object steps into the shoes of the missing subject. This is called the deputy subject (نائب الفاعل), and just like a regular subject, it must be nominative.
Is the second verb نقل also in the passive voice?
Yes! Because it is linked by و (and) to the first passive verb, and the subject (the money) is still the thing receiving the action, it is also read in the passive voice. It follows the exact same pattern and is pronounced نُقِلَ (nuqila), meaning "was transported" or "was moved."
The word for "unknown" is مجهول. Isn't that related to the Arabic grammatical term for the passive voice?
Exactly! The grammatical term for the passive voice is المبني للمجهول (literally "built for the unknown", because the doer of the action is unmentioned). The word مجهول (majhūl) itself is the Form I passive participle of the root ج-ه-ل (to not know), so it simply means "unknown."
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