قَلَّbecame scarce

Example sentences

• فَلهَذَا قل وارده الْمُحب يهرب إِلَى الْعُزْلَة وَالْخلْوَة بمحبوبه

  For this reason, few come to it. The lover flees to solitude and seclusion with his beloved.

  قَلَّ — he rarely did. A past-tense verb 'became few / were few', its subject coming next — 'few are…'. It states the scarcity that follows from love being a pathless spring.

  From: Love and Devotion to God →

• قَلَّ عَرَبِيٌّ نَشَأَ بِهَا مِثْلَهُ

  Few Arabs who grew up in it were like him.

  قَلَّ — were few. A past verb expressing scarcity, 'were few', which heads the sentence and sets up a 'rarely was there...' frame. It governs the noun that follows as its subject and colours the whole statement as a claim of rarity.

  From: The Martyr's Reward →