بَلَاء trials in Arabic
بَلَاء is how you say “trials” in Arabic.
Root ب ل و b-l-w. noun (verbal noun / maṣdar, from Form I بَلَا, or treated as an independent substantive). balāʾ.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of trials in Arabic
- trial, test, probation classically a testing sent by God, either through a blessing (to test gratitude) or through hardship (to test patience)
- affliction, tribulation an extension of the testing sense, since the trial in question is so often a painful one
- wearing out, decay a secondary sense shared with the overlapping root بلي, said of a garment (or, by extension, a plant, a corpse, or a reputation) growing old and worn
Example sentence
وسيصيب آخرها بلاء وأمور تنكرونها،
and its end will face trials and matters you will deny.
بَلَاءٌ trials
This indefinite noun, 'an affliction', is the subject doing the striking, placed after its verb as Arabic commonly orders things. Its indefinite ending presents it as something new entering the picture.
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
Balāʾ describes a test God puts a person through — by a benefit, to see if they are grateful, or by a calamity, to see if they are patient (cf. Qur'an 21:36, on testing by good and evil, and 2:118, on Abraham being tried by commands). Because the harder trials are painful, the word came to carry the sense of 'affliction' even on its own. It shares its root letters with the separate sense 'to wear out, grow old,' seen in a worn garment.
Words from the same root
- بَلَا he tried, proved, or tested him (of God: he tried him by good or by evil)
- ابتلى he tried, proved, or tested him — a synonym of balā, the form used of divine testing
- أبلى he tried, or tested, him; some restrict this form to testing by way of a favor or benefit
- مُبَالَاة caring, heeding, minding — mostly used negated, 'lā ubālī' = 'I do not care'
- بَلِيَ it became old and worn out (said of a garment; also of a plant, a corpse, a bone, or a reputation)
- بَلِيَّة a she-camel or mare tied at her dead master's grave, left without food or water until she died — an old funerary custom
More example sentences
وَأَنْزَلَهُ إِلَى دَارِ الْذُّلِّ وَالْهَوانِ وَالْبَلَاءِ وَالْاِمْتِحَانِ
And He sent him down to the abode of humiliation, abasement, affliction, and trial.
وَالْبَلَاء and affliction
The 'wa-' adds 'affliction' as a further item to the running list of the abode's qualities, again sharing the chain's genitive ending. The repeated connector strings the parallel nouns into one sweeping description of the place.
Common questions
- How do you say "trials" in Arabic?
- بَلَاء (balāʾ).
- Does balāʾ always mean something bad, like a calamity?
- Not necessarily — classically it is any test from God, delivered either through a blessing (testing gratitude) or through hardship (testing patience), though in practice it very often refers to the painful kind.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).