نَاسِpeople

Example sentences

• فَقَالَ عَلَى الْبَدِيهَةِ أَفْضَلُ النَّاسِ مَنْ كَانَتْ بِنْتُهُ تَحْتَهُ،

  He said on the spur of the moment: the best of people is the one whose daughter was under him.

  الْنَاسِ — the people. A definite plural, 'the people', the owned half of 'best of people', in the after-a-possessor case. Set beside the superlative with no word for 'of', it is the group the 'best' is drawn from.

  From: Sermons, Wit, and Sorrow →

• فَإِنَّ أَعْقَلَ النَّاسِ عَنِ اللَّهِ أَحْسَنُهُمْ عَمَلًا

  Indeed, the people most mindful of God are best in their deeds.

  النَّاسِ — the people. This noun is the possessed half of 'the most mindful of the people', so it sits in the (genitive); its al- makes it definite. The af'al word plus this group is how Arabic forms 'the most X of Y'. It names the field the superlative ranges over.

  From: On Reason and Temptation →

• وَجَعْلُنَا الحُكَّامُ عَلَى النَّاسِ

  And We made the rulers over the people.

  النَّاسِ — the people. The al- makes this definite, 'the' people, marking the whole known body. It sits right after the preposition, so it takes the genitive ending that prepositions force on the noun they govern; that ending is the audible sign it is the object of 'over'.

  From: The Prophet's Marriage to Khadijah →