أَلَسْتَare you not

Example sentences

• فَقَالَ لَهُ أَلَسْتَ تَزَعْمُ أَنَّهُ لَا يُصِيبُكَ إِلَّا مَا كُتِبَ اللَّهُ لَكَ

  So he said to him, "Do you not claim that nothing will befall you except what God has decreed for you?"

  أَلَسْتَ — are you not. A yes/no question built by gluing the question marker onto the negative verb 'are not', addressed to a single 'you' (the ending carries that second-person singular). Asking with a negative like this is rhetorical: it expects agreement, nudging the listener toward 'yes, of course I do'.

  From: Stories of Prophetic Judgments →