Arabic vocabulary
How to say “calamity” in Arabic, with pronunciation and real example sentences from OpenArabic texts.
وَالْقَضَاء نَوْعَانِ إِمَّا مصائب وَإِمَّا معائب
The decree is of two types: either calamities or faults.
مُصِيبَاتٌ — calamities. A sound feminine plural, marked by the '-at' ending Arabic adds for many feminine nouns, naming 'afflictions'. It is the first of the two kinds the decree falls into.
From: Accepting God's Decree →وعبوديته فِي قَضَاء المصائب الصَّبْر عَلَيْهَا
And his servitude in the decree of calamities is patience upon them.
المَصَائِبِ — calamities. A broken plural, 'afflictions', the owner in 'the decree of ___', so genitive. It names the trials whose decree the servant must meet.
From: Accepting God's Decree →فَقَالَ تَعَالَى وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
And He, the Exalted, said, "And give glad tidings to the patient ones, those who, when a misfortune befalls them, say, 'Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.'"
مُصِيبَةٌ — a misfortune. A noun ('misfortune') standing as the doer of 'strikes', in the nominative as the subject after its verb. Its indefiniteness keeps it general - any calamity, not a specific one.
From: Patience and God's Help →هُوَ الرَّجُلُ تُصِيبُهُ الْمُصِيبَةُ فَيَعْلَمُ أَنَّهَا مِنْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ فَيَرْضَى وَيَسْلَمُ
He is the man who, when a calamity befalls him, knows that it is from God, and is content and at peace.
الْمُصِيبَةُ — the calamity. The al- makes this 'the calamity' specific, the feminine subject of the verb before it, in the nominative as the doer. Coming after its verb in the usual order, it names what does the befalling, agreeing with the verb's feminine form.
From: Patience Under Decree →فَكَانَ الْعَمَلُ وَالْمُصِيبَةُ الْمُتَرَتِّبَةُ عَلَيْهِ مُقَدَّرًا
So the deed and the calamity resulting from it were decreed.
وَالْمُصِيبَةُ — and the calamity. A linking 'and' bound to a second definite noun, joined in parallel to the first subject so both share the single 'were decreed' predicate. Arabic lets one verb-frame cover a coordinated pair of subjects like this.
From: Patience Under Decree →OpenArabic teaches words like مُصِيبَةٌ through real bilingual reading with native audio and spaced-repetition practice.
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