# دينِ - وَلِيَ دِينِ



## Ander

In Quran 109 verse 6, why isn't it written ديني instead of  دينِ


----------



## Tajabone

Salut à toi, Ander,

According to a gloss proposed by Al-Bukhari (mentioned in Tafsir Ibnu Kathiir), the final nun was kept without the final possesive ya in order to keep the prosody of the Sura which has the letter nun as an element of assonance.

En gros, c'est pour que ça rime vu que la sourate a la lettre nun comme élément redondant 

Porte-toi bien


----------



## Ander

Tajabone

I am a little bit astonished by that explanation. So a good sounding text should be more important than a rule of grammar.
Is there another explanation?


----------



## Tajabone

The Quran has its rhetoric and also its semantics which is historically more dependant on the semitic languages of the time. Some commentators are very good at pointing out the semitic etymology of Quranic words. Arrazi *الرازي* is a reliable source for such matters.

 Yet, one of the best explanations for your question is given by Ibnu Kathiir; he simply shows examples where the possesive ya is omitted:

 الشعراء: verse 78

الَّذِي خَلَقَنِي فَهُوَ يَهْدِينِ

 and also verses 79, 80, 81 from the same sura.

 Le Coran fait aussi dans la licence poétique


----------



## cherine

Thanks Ander for the question, it made me do some search 

I admit that the prosidy explanation sounds a bit weird, but after searching in several "tafseer" books, I found that the reaon is the reading. Qur'anic script has a lot to do with reading, this is why we better learn some of the rules -or the coding- of Quranic writing before reading it, to make sure we're not reading it wrong.

So, the elision of the yaa2 has to do with the way that word is read: din(i). Most readers pause at the nuun (din), and the script respects this pause, using the kasra to signal the pronounciation. (note that the kasra is, in a way, a short yaa2).

A similar case is the verse 186 of the second Surate : 
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ​One of the mufassiriin (Ibn 3aashurr ابن عاشور) says :
وحذفت ياء المتكلم من قوله «دعان» في قراءة نافع وأبي عَمرو وحمزة والكسائي؛ لأن حذفها في الوقف لغة جمهور العرب عدا أهل الحجاز، ولا تحذف عندهم في الوصل لأن الأصل عدمه ولأن الرسم يبنى على حال الوقف، وأثبت الياء ابن كثير وهشام ويعقوب في الوصل والوقف، وقرأ ابن ذكوان وعاصم بحذف الياء في الوصل والوقف وهي لغة هذيل، وقد تقدم أن الكلمة لو وقعت فاصلة لكان الحذف متفقاً​To roughly translate this : the elision is because the general agreement in reading this word is to pause "da3aan" (and not da3aanii), and because the script الرسم  is chosen according to the pause.

The same opinion was expression in his explanation of the verse (40) of the same surate, and added an important note: which is that the word is written like this because it's at the end of the verse, otherwise it wouldn't be written without the yaa2.
لو لم تكن ياء المتكلم في كلمة هي فاصلة من الآي لما اتفق الجمهور على حذفها​


----------



## Ander

Tajabone said:
			
		

> Le Coran fait aussi dans la licence poétique



Eh bien c'est noté. 
Merci.


----------



## Tajabone

Ander said:


> Eh bien c'est noté.
> Merci.


 
 Y a pas de soucis  

 And just like Cherine (whom I thank for the valuable additional info), I thank you too for asking such a question.

 I still can remember how we studied Quranic verses at school. This particular verse was ambiguous for us. And sometimes, children like commentators share the same puzzlements 

 We have, in fact, to keep in mind the dialectal ways of pronunciation during the Quranic period and also to know that a written form (Graphie, in French) is sometimes different from its phonic substance.

 I take advantage of this occasion to share this linguistic glossary with you all : http://www.sil.org/linguistics/Glossary_fe/glossary.asp?entryid=3780

 A la prochaine !


----------



## Ander

Tajabone

Il y en aura d'autres. Merci.


----------



## suma

Remember that the rules of grammar (as we know them) were established centuries after the spoken language, and some centuries after the revelation of the Quran.

So precedence and criterion of correct Arabic is with these two, not rules of grammar.


----------



## Ander

I find so many instances in the Quran when the possessive suffix ي- "my" is written with only a kasra, that I wonder whether that isn't just the grammar rule at the time, that you could write the possessive pronoun "my" either with kasra yaa' or kasra.
Or is it strictly a prosody rule?


----------



## MeiLing

suma said:


> Remember that the rules of grammar (as we know them) were established centuries after the spoken language, and some centuries after the revelation of the Quran.
> 
> So precedence and criterion of correct Arabic is with these two, not rules of grammar.


Rules of grammar are dependant on and derived from these two sources!


----------



## Abu Bishr

Hi Everybody

Scholars of the Science of the Variant Quranic Readings have enumerated a total of 121 such cases in the Quran in which the Yaa' is not written. Of the 121 cases 86 occur at the end of verses, and 35 in the middle of verses. Now, in some Quranic readings the Yaa' is read even though the script does not affirm the Yaa' and in other readings the Yaa' is not read exactly as it appears in the muSHaf. All books dealing with the variant Quranic readings treat this phenomenon under the heading of الياءات الزائدة orالياءات الزوائد (meaning "the additional Yaa's"), and they are called such because they are affirmed (in some Quranic readings) in pronunciation but not so in writing. In other words, they are added in pronunciation but not so in writing.

Finally, there are generally three ways of reading these verses in which the Yaa' has been dropped (& it depends on the particular reading style that you are follwing):

(1) Not to pronounce the Yaa' at all exactly as it is in the muSHaf,
(2) To pronounce it at all times, and
(3) Not to pronounce it when pausing, and to pronounce it when not pausing.

The last type of reading is popular in North Africa where they read the readings of Warsh & Qaloon both of whom were students of Nafi' al-Madani.

So I hope this explains the issue with the elided Yaa'.


----------



## Ander

MeiLing said:


> Rules of grammar are dependant on and derived from these two sources!



The rule of grammar derived from those sources only says that the suffixed possessive pronoun corresponding to "my" is kasra yaa' and not kasra.

Thanks Abu Bishr for your additional explanations. 
I was about to start collecting the instances of elided yaa's but you gave the number of occurences and their position in the sentence.


----------



## MeiLing

Ander said:


> The rule of grammar derived from those sources only says that the suffixed possessive pronoun corresponding to "my" is kasra yaa' and not kasra.


I think this might be ture when applied only on the Holy Qur'an. What do you think about the spoken language before the establishment of the grammar rules?


----------



## Ander

Not much. I'll leave that opinion to arabists.


----------



## WadiH

I don't know if Ander is still paying attention to this thread, but I would like to add that in the dialects of northern Najd (Qassim and Ha'il specifically), the ي is omitted in the same way as in the Quranic verse you mention. For example, Qassimis say things like:

لا تضربن instead of لا تضربني
راسي يوجعن instead of راسي يوجعني
غلبون instead of غلبوني

and so on.

Also, refer to verses 15 and 16 of Surat Al-Fajr, in which the verses end with أكرمن and أهانن even though they are not part of a rhyming pattern. It seems that the old rule - at least among some tribes - was to try to stop at a consonant as much as possible, just as the current codified rule is to stop on a _sukoon_ regardless of the _i'rab_ (grammatical position).


----------



## suma

Ander said:


> The rule of grammar derived from those sources only says that the suffixed possessive pronoun corresponding to "my" is kasra yaa' and not kasra.



No, it means that the spoken language, which preceded the written standard by man years, was natural and qite varied. When the rules of grammar were pinned down the grammarians could not include every nuance of spoken speech. So decisions were made as to what from there forward would be regarded as grammatically acceptable or cerrect.

Texts that pre-date the creation of standardized grammar rules are grandfathered in as correct usage, albeit classical or archaic.
Think about it, it's just not logical to apply subsquent rules of grammar to older texts.


----------



## WadiH

Very well put.


----------

