بَل but in Arabic
بَل is how you say “but” in Arabic.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Example sentence
تُعرَض عليه الأعمال يوم القيامة لا كأرقام جافّة، بل كصورٍ ومعانٍ حية لها ثِقَلٌ وحضور
Actions are presented on it on the Day of Judgment not as dry numbers, but as living images and meanings with weight and presence.
بَلْ but
'rather' — the corrective that cancels the rejected image and substitutes the true one: not X, BUT Y.
The English is machine-translated.
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More example sentences
لذلك جاء في القرآن ﴿فَمَنْ ثَقُلَتْ مَوَازِينُهُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ﴾، ولم يقل من رجحت سيئاته؛ لأن السيئات لا تُعطي صاحبها وزنًا محمودًا، بل تُسقطه
Therefore, it is mentioned in the Quran: 'So those whose scales are heavy, they are the successful ones,' and it does not say: 'whose bad deeds outweigh,' because bad deeds do not give their owner a praiseworthy weight; rather, they bring him down.
بَلْ rather
'rather' — the corrective: not that, BUT the opposite. It pivots to what bad deeds actually do.
بل يُحرِّرُ وقتها من السُّدى ويُكثِّف حلاوتها
But it liberates its time from waste and intensifies its sweetness.
بَلْ but
'rather / on the contrary' — cancelling the denied 'constrains' and substituting the truth. Not that disciplined attention narrows life; RATHER it liberates and enriches it, as the two verbs next say.
حينها لا تستدعي الكلمات فقط، بل تستدعي المشهد
Then, you do not only recall the words but also the scene.
بَلْ but also
'rather / but also' — cancelling the 'only words' and adding the fuller thing. Not just words; RATHER the whole scene, as the verb next repeats. Anchored meaning recalls the picture, not only the text.
فَلَمَّا سَمِعَ ذَلِكَ قَالَ مَعَاذَ اللَّهِ لَا نَقُولُ إِنَّهُ مَلِكٌ ظَالِمٌ، بَلْ نَبِيٌّ كَرِيمٌ مَنْ اتَّبَعَهُ فَهُوَ مِنَ السُّعَدَاءِ، وَكَذَلِكَ مَنْ اتَّبَعَ مُوسَى فَهُوَ كَمَنْ اتَّبَعَ مُحَمَّدًا
When he heard this, he said: 'God forbid! We do not say he is a tyrant king, but a noble prophet. Whoever follows him is among the blessed, and likewise, whoever follows Moses is like one who follows Muhammad.'
بَلْ but
This is a particle of retraction meaning 'rather', setting aside the rejected description to assert the true one. It pivots from denial to affirmation: not that, but a noble prophet instead.
علم الحديث والمحدثون فغالبهم لا يفقهون ولا همة لهم في معرفة الحديث ولا في التدين به، بل الصحيح والموضوع عندهم بنسبة
The science of Hadith and its scholars: most of them do not understand, nor do they care about knowing the Hadith or practicing it; rather, the authentic and the fabricated are the same to them.
بَلِ but
A particle of correction/retraction meaning 'rather/on the contrary', used to set aside the preceding statement and assert something stronger instead. Its grammatical job is to cancel the prior point and pivot to a sharper one - here, that to them sound and forged reports look the same. It signals 'forget that; in fact...'.