كَانَت were in Arabic
كَانَت is how you say “were” in Arabic.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Example sentence
والثاني وهو الأرجح أن تسوية بنانه إعادتها كما كانت بعد ما فرقها البلى في التراب
And the second, which is more likely, is that restoring his fingertips refers to making them as they were after decay had dispersed them in the dust.
كَانَتْ they were
This is a past-tense form of the verb 'to be' carrying a feminine 'they/it' subject, describing how the fingertips formerly were. Arabic's 'to be' verb appears in the past to set a prior state, where English would also reach for 'were'.
The English is machine-translated.
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More example sentences
وكانت أمه مولاة لأم سلمة؛ زوج النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم،
His mother was a freedwoman of Umm Salama, the wife of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
وَكَانَتْ and she was
The opening particle joins this on, and the 'to be' verb carries a feminine 'she' subject marked by its ending, framing 'his mother was'. Arabic shows the feminine doer by that attached ending rather than a separate pronoun.
وَهِي وَإِن كَانَت مَنْفَعَتهَا للْعَبد وَالله غَنِي عَنْهَا فَهِيَ لَهُ من جِهَة محبته لَهَا وَرضَاهُ بهَا
And even though its benefit is for the servant and Allah is self-sufficient from it, it is for Him in terms of His love for it and His approval of it.
كَانَتْ it was
This is the past tense of the verb 'to be' with a feminine 'it' subject, anchoring the conceded description. The feminine ending agrees with worship, the thing being talked about, kept as the subject of this clause.