# وما وصفت الجنة بشيء إلا وفي دمشق مثله



## LiliaGaripovaRadikovna

What is written on this image?


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## akhooha

What is the source of this image? I'm wondering if it is even Arabic ...


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## LiliaGaripovaRadikovna

@akhooha, my teacher of Arabic has it on his avatar in Skype. I asked him, but he didn't reply me openly. So, I'm curious


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## LiliaGaripovaRadikovna

I found by myself 🙈وما وصفت الجنة بشيء إلا و في دمشق مثله.


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## elroy

How did you figure it out?!


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## Tilmeedh

Out of curiosity, what does the phrase in the title mean?


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## elroy

Whatever Paradise has been described as having, you’ll find in Damascus.


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## HotIcyDonut

How does one even parse that sentence? In particular, this part I just don't get:

إلا و — why is it even here? It just feels like one can drop it altogether:

وما وصفت الجنة بشيء، في دمشق مثله


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## elroy

The original contains a double negative: "There is nothing that Paradise has been described as having that Damascus does not have."  So you need both negative elements (ما and إلا).

Your version has the opposite meaning!  ("There is nothing Paradise has been described as having, that Damascus also has.")


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## HotIcyDonut

Oops. I parsed ما as "whatever" instead of the one that negates a past tense verb 

As "Whatever you depict Heaven to be…". I always forget it's مهما, not just ما.


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## elroy

I may have confused you with my translation, which wasn’t literal.  Sorry!


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## HotIcyDonut

No problem. There're really too many ما's in Arabic. And ف's as well


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## cherine

LiliaGaripovaRadikovna said:


> I found by myself 🙈وما وصفت الجنة بشيء إلا و في دمشق مثله.


I'm impressed, really! How did you figure it out?


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## Tilmeedh

I interpreted (ما) as 'what', which really threw me off. I agree that this particle is excessively polysemous.

A few more elements of the sentence are puzzling, though.

1) Since they don't mean 'and', what role(s) do the two (و)'s play?

2) If (وصف ب) means 'to be described as', with a missing 'damma' on the 'waaw', what function does (شيء) serve?

3) With (في دمشق مثله), wouldn't the author be saying 'there's something like it/similar to it in Damascus'?


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## elroy

1. Hopefully someone better versed than I in Arabic grammatical terminology and categories can answer this one.  I can tell you that both of them sound very natural and at least greatly improve the flow of the sentence.  The first one I'm pretty sure is dispensable; the second one, I'm not so sure.
2. وصفت الجنة بشيء is literally "Paradise was / has been described with something."  Does that help?
3. مثله in Arabic can also refer to the same exact thing.  For example, if you and I have the exact same bag, I can say عندي مثل حقيبتك.


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## cherine

Tilmeedh said:


> I interpreted (ما) as 'what', which really threw me off. I agree that this particle is excessively polysemous.


One way to help determine whether it's a "what" or a negation, is to replace it with الذي , and with لم and see if the sentence makes sense. If we say الذي وصفت الجنة بشيء doesn't make sense, but لم توصف does (we need to change the form of the verb, of course).


> 1) Since they don't mean 'and', what role(s) do the two (و)'s play?


I believe this is a waaw al-7aal واو الحال. There are a few examples of this structure in the Qur'an:

وَمَا مَنَعَهُمْ أَن تُقْبَلَ مِنْهُمْ نَفَقَاتُهُمْ إِلاَّ أَنَّهُمْ كَفَرُواْ بِٱللَّهِ وَبِرَسُولِهِ وَلاَ يَأْتُونَ ٱلصَّلاَةَ إِلاَّ وَهُمْ كُسَالَىٰ وَلاَ يُنفِقُونَ إِلاَّ وَهُمْ كَارِهُونَ
(سورة التوبة، الآية 54)
وَمَا يُؤْمِنُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ بِٱللَّهِ إِلاَّ وَهُمْ مُّشْرِكُونَ
(سورة يوسف، آية 106)
In these verses, the phrases وهم كُسالى، وهم كارهون، وهم مشركون are all حال. And the structure always starts with a negation, like: ما يفعل كذا إلا وهو كذا he only does so and so when he's so and so, he doesn't do so and so unless xyz...


> 2) If (وصف ب) means 'to be described as', with a missing 'damma' on the 'waaw', what function does (شيء) serve?


The damma isn't really needed because unless there's a literary or poetical need to personify heaven, it can only be described, not a describer. And the form or structure وَصَف كذا بكذا is common, so وُصفت الجنة بالجمال، وصفت الجنة بالسلام، وصفت الجنة بأن فيها حدائق وأنهار … and here شيء kind of replaces all the attributes given to it.


> 3) With (في دمشق مثله), wouldn't the author be saying 'there's something like it/similar to it in Damascus'?


Yes.


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## LiliaGaripovaRadikovna

@elroy, sorry for late answer
It's a phrase of  ياقوت الحموي1178, was born in 1178,and he was a writer, this was on the cover of one of his books


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