Adverbial Time Object – ظَرْفُ زَمَانٍ
- In this part of the lesson we will learn a new grammatical term, In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Willing). We will learn about the form of a noun which indicates the time when an action has occurred. This type of nouns is called the “Adverbial Time Object – ظَرْفُ زَمَانٍ” or “The object of time – الْمَفْعُولُ فِيهِ “. In this part of the lesson we will learn about the vowel ending of these words as well as the words following them, In-Shā’-Allâh (God-Willing). There are different nouns used as Adverbial Time Objects and we will learn two of them in this part of the lesson which are:
| English | Arabic |
| Before | قَبْلَ |
| After | بَعْدَ |
- These nouns are a type of Object; therefore they always take the accusative case with a /fatħah/. However they work as /Muđâf/ (possessed) therefore the nouns following them will take the genitive case e.g.:
| English | Arabic |
| I entered the house after the prayer | دَخَلْتُ الْبَيْتَ بَعْدَ الصَّلاةِ. |
| I went to the school before Ahmad | ذَهَبْتُ إِلَى الْمَدْرَسَةِ قَبْلَ أَحْمَدَ. |
- Let’s take some more examples to understand this rule:
| Picture | English | Arabic |
|
| Muhammad entered into the room after a prayer. | دَخَلَ مُحَمَّدٌ الْغُرْفَةَ بَعْدَ صَلاةٍ. |
|
| Ayesha went to the university before the lesson. | ذَهَبَتْ عَائِشَةُ إِلَى الْجَامِعَةِ قَبْلَ الدَّرْسِ. |
|
| They (fem.) wrote the story after one week. | هُنَّ كَتَبْنَ الْقِصَّةَ بَعْدَ أُسْبُوعٍ. |
|
| I went to hospital a month ago. |
