أُصَلِّيto pray

Example sentences

• فَإِذَا كَانَ الشِّتَاءُ جَاءَ حَتَّى قَعَدَ خَلْفِي وَأَنَا أُصَلِّي،

  When winter came, he would come until he sat behind me while I prayed.

  أُصَلِّي — I am praying. A first-person present-tense verb, 'I pray', with the 'I' built into its prefix. Inside this 'while I was...' side-clause it reads as an ongoing past action, something in progress rather than a one-off, because the present shape in Arabic also covers continuous and habitual time when an earlier frame sets the past. So its present form is doing past-continuous work here.

  From: Mothers and the Companions →

• قَالَتْ فَقُمْتُ لَيْلَةً أُصَلِّي،

  She said, "I rose one night to pray,"

  أُصَلِّي — I pray. A first-person present verb, 'I pray', with the 'I' in its prefix. Here it reads as the purpose of the rising, 'I rose to pray', since a present verb trailing an action of motion can express the goal of that motion. So its present shape is doing 'in order to' work in this context.

  From: Mothers and the Companions →

• فَقَالَ أُجِيبُهَا أَوْ أُصَلِّي

  So he said, "Shall I answer her or shall I pray?"

  أُصَلِّي — I pray. A present-shape verb again carrying its 'I' inside the prefix, naming the second of the two options. Standing in the 'or' frame, its plain present form reads as a weighed possibility -- 'or shall I pray?' -- rather than a report of fact.

  From: Those Who Spoke in the Cradle →