Mafʿūl Mā Lam Yusamma Fāʿiluhu — The Passive Subject

1. Mafʿūl Mā Lam Yusamma Fāʿiluhu — Source Heading

فَصْلٌ: مَفْعُولُ مَا لَمْ يُسَمَّ فَاعِلُهُ.
Translation: Section: the object of a verb whose agent has not been named.

The book uses the classical label mafʿūl mā lam yusamma fāʿiluhu. Modern instruction commonly calls it the nāʾib al-fāʿil (passive subject). What was formerly the object occupies the agent’s grammatical position once the agent is unmentioned.

2. The Source Definition

وَهُوَ كُلُّ مَفْعُولٍ حُذِفَ فَاعِلُهُ، وَأُقِيمَ هُوَ مَقَامَهُ، نَحْوُ: «ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ».
Translation: It is an object whose agent is omitted and which is placed in the agent’s position, as in “Zayd was struck.”

Two operations occur: (1) the original subject/agent is omitted; (2) the former object is promoted to the grammatical position of subject. Zayd undergoes the action semantically yet is nominative.

3. The Source Rule for Agreement

وَحُكْمُهُ فِي تَوْحِيدِ فِعْلِهِ وَتَثْنِيَتِهِ وَجَمْعِهِ وَتَذْكِيرِهِ وَتَأْنِيثِهِ عَلَى قِيَاسِ مَا عَرَفْتَ فِي الْفَاعِلِ.
Translation: Its verb follows the same principles of singular, dual, plural, masculine and feminine agreement previously learned for the subject.

The author refers to the earlier agreement rules for the fāʿil. Crucially, an overt dual or plural noun normally follows a singular verb in standard verb-initial order; a pronominal passive subject is reflected in the verb’s person/number form.

4. Full Parsing: ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ

ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ — Zayd was struck.

ضُرِبَ: past passive verb, built on fatḥa, from active «ضَرَبَ».
زَيْدٌ: nāʾib al-fāʿil, nominative with visible ḍamma.

The doer of the striking is not named. Although Zayd is grammatically nominative, he is the receiver of the action, not its semantic agent.

5. Active versus Passive

ضَرَبَ خَالِدٌ زَيْدًا — Khalid struck Zayd. «خَالِدٌ» is the nominative agent; «زَيْدًا» the accusative object.

ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ — Zayd was struck. The agent is omitted; «زَيْدٌ» becomes the nominative passive subject.

The original object changes case and grammatical role, not its semantic relationship to the event.

6. Three Steps: Turning Active into Passive

Original: كَتَبَ الطَّالِبُ الدَّرْسَ — The student wrote the lesson.

1. Change active «كَتَبَ» to passive كُتِبَ.
2. Omit the overt agent الطَّالِبُ.
3. Promote the original object «الدَّرْسَ» to nominative الدَّرْسُ.

Result: كُتِبَ الدَّرْسُ — The lesson was written.

7. Why Does the Object Become Nominative?

In the active sentence, «الدَّرْسَ» is the accusative object. After passivization it occupies the nominative passive-subject position as «الدَّرْسُ».

The case change reflects the changed syntactic relationship. The lesson is still what was written; it has not become the writer.

8. Vowels of the Simple Past Passive

For regular triliteral Form I past verbs, the common passive template is فُعِلَ: ḍamma on the first radical and kasra before the final radical.

ضَرَبَ → ضُرِبَ (struck → was struck)
كَتَبَ → كُتِبَ (wrote → was written)
فَتَحَ → فُتِحَ (opened → was opened)

This is a pedagogical extension for regular verbs, not additional quoted text from the book.

9. Present Passive: يُفْعَلُ

For a regular Form I present verb, the passive commonly has the pattern يُفْعَلُ: the prefix takes ḍamma and the penultimate radical fatḥa.

يَكْتُبُ → يُكْتَبُ (writes → is written); يَفْتَحُ → يُفْتَحُ (opens → is opened).

In يُكْتَبُ الدَّرْسُ, «الدَّرْسُ» is nominative nāʾib al-fāʿil.

10. Past and Present: Parsing Differences

كُتِبَ الدَّرْسُ: past passive «كُتِبَ» is built on fatḥa; «الدَّرْسُ» is nominative passive subject.

يُكْتَبُ الدَّرْسُ: present passive «يُكْتَبُ» is indicative with ḍamma in the absence of a subjunctive or jussive particle; the noun remains nominative.

Voice and mood/iʿrāb are separate properties of a verb.

11. Overt Singular Passive Subject

فُتِحَ الْبَابُ — The door was opened.

فُتِحَ: past passive verb built on fatḥa.
الْبَابُ: overt singular masculine passive subject, nominative with ḍamma.

The verb is masculine singular; the door receives the action.

12. Overt Dual: Why Is the Verb Singular?

فُتِحَ الْبَابَانِ — The two doors were opened.

فُتِحَ: singular masculine past passive.
الْبَابَانِ: dual passive subject, nominative by alif.

With a following overt dual in standard verb-initial Arabic, the verb remains singular. Do not add a second explicit dual subject to «فُتِحَا» here.

13. Overt Plural: Singular Verb

كُرِّمَ الْمُعَلِّمُونَ — The teachers were honored.

كُرِّمَ: singular masculine past passive from Form II.
الْمُعَلِّمُونَ: nominative passive subject with wāw marking sound masculine plural.

The plural marking is on the noun; in this verb-initial structure, the verb is singular.

14. Broken Plural as Passive Subject

فُتِحَتِ الْأَبْوَابُ — The doors were opened.

فُتِحَتْ: past passive with feminine tāʾ; before the following alif-lām, a helping kasra appears in connected pronunciation.
الْأَبْوَابُ: broken plural of a nonhuman noun, nominative passive subject with ḍamma.

A singular feminine verb is common with nonhuman plural nouns. The visible plural noun does not make the preceding verb plural.

15. Feminine Passive Subject

كُرِّمَتْ فَاطِمَةُ — Fatimah was honored.

كُرِّمَتْ: past passive with feminine tāʾ.
فَاطِمَةُ: feminine proper-name passive subject, nominative by ḍamma.

Agreement in gender here follows the same basic pattern as an overt feminine subject after an active verb.

16. Non-Real Feminine and Agreement

فُتِحَتِ النَّافِذَةُ — The window was opened.

النَّافِذَةُ: passive subject, nominative; grammatically but not biologically feminine. The feminine-marked verb is a standard form.

The permissibility of alternative agreement can depend on whether the noun is genuinely or figuratively feminine and on syntactic separation; do not force one absolute rule on all feminine nouns.

17. Dual Pronoun: ضُرِبَا

الرَّجُلَانِ ضُرِبَا — The two men were struck.

الرَّجُلَانِ: nominative topic (mubtadaʾ), marked by alif.
ضُرِبَا: past passive verb; attached dual alif pronoun is the passive subject in the verb phrase, which is the predicate.

Contrast: ضُرِبَ الرَّجُلَانِ has an overt dual passive subject after a singular verb.

18. Plural Pronoun: ضُرِبُوا

الْمُعَلِّمُونَ كُرِّمُوا — The teachers were honored.

الْمُعَلِّمُونَ: nominative topic, with wāw marking sound masculine plural.
كُرِّمُوا: past passive; the attached plural wāw pronoun is the passive subject, and the verb phrase is the predicate.

Contrast: كُرِّمَ الْمُعَلِّمُونَ has a singular verb before an overt plural passive subject.

19. Feminine Plural Pronoun

الطَّالِبَاتُ كُرِّمْنَ — The female students were honored.

الطَّالِبَاتُ: nominative topic, sound feminine plural.
كُرِّمْنَ: feminine-plural past passive; attached nūn al-niswa is the passive subject, with the verb phrase as predicate.

The feminine plural form belongs to a pronominal subject, not a following overt noun.

20. Implicit Passive Subject

If the context makes the affected singular masculine person clear, ضُرِبَ can stand alone, with an implicit «هُوَ» serving as the passive subject.

Do not confuse the omitted agent with the implicit passive-subject pronoun. One is the unmentioned actor; the other points to the person undergoing the action.

21. A Prepositional Phrase Is Not Automatically the Passive Subject

كُتِبَ الدَّرْسُ بِالْقَلَمِ — The lesson was written with a pen.

كُتِبَ: past passive.
الدَّرْسُ: nominative passive subject.
بِالْقَلَمِ: bāʾ of instrument plus genitive noun «الْقَلَمِ».

The prepositional phrase is not automatically the passive subject; it expresses an instrument.

22. Full Parsing of an Active-Passive Pair

قَرَأَ الْمُعَلِّمُ الْكِتَابَ — The teacher read the book: «الْمُعَلِّمُ» is the nominative agent; «الْكِتَابَ» the accusative object.

قُرِئَ الْكِتَابُ — The book was read: «قُرِئَ» is the past passive; «الْكِتَابُ» the nominative passive subject.

The book did not perform the reading; its syntactic function changed, not its semantic role.

23. A Second Worked Conversion

Active: أَكْرَمَ الْمُدِيرُ الطَّالِبَ — The director honored the student.

Passive: أُكْرِمَ الطَّالِبُ — The student was honored.

أُكْرِمَ: Form IV past passive, built on fatḥa.
الطَّالِبُ: nominative passive subject.

The accusative object «الطَّالِبَ» has become nominative «الطَّالِبُ».

24. Topic versus Passive Subject

زَيْدٌ ضُرِبَ — Zayd was struck.

زَيْدٌ: nominative mubtadaʾ (topic).
ضُرِبَ: past passive with an implicit passive-subject pronoun «هُوَ» referring to Zayd; verbal sentence is the predicate.

By contrast, in ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ, the overt Zayd is himself the passive subject. Similar meaning does not require identical syntactic analysis.

25. Is the Agent Necessarily Unknown?

The classical expression mā lam yusamma fāʿiluhu literally means the agent is not named. The speaker may know the agent but choose not to mention it.

In فُتِحَ الْبَابُ, the focus can simply be on the opening of the door. The grammatical passive does not prove that the real-world actor is unknown.

26. Comparison: Object and Passive Subject

ActivePassiveفَتَحَ زَيْدٌ الْبَابَفُتِحَ الْبَابُ«الْبَابَ»: accusative object«الْبَابُ»: nominative passive subject

The noun denotes the same door. Voice, case, and syntactic role change.

27. A Repeatable Parsing Method

For any passive sentence ask: (1) past or present? (2) active or passive voice? (3) is the passive subject an overt noun, attached pronoun, or implicit pronoun? (4) what marks its nominative case? (5) why does verb agreement take this form?

These five checks produce a complete naḥw analysis rather than guessing from word endings alone.

28. Three Frequent Mistakes

Mistake 1: putting the promoted noun in the accusative: «ضُرِبَ زَيْدًا» instead of ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ.

Mistake 2: treating Zayd as the semantic striker; he is the person struck.

Mistake 3: forcing a dual/plural verb before every overt dual/plural passive subject; in ordinary verb-initial order, the verb remains singular.

29. The Source Rule in One View

(1) The agent is unmentioned. (2) The original object is promoted. (3) The promoted element is nāʾib al-fāʿil and is nominative. (4) The verb is passive. (5) Singular/dual/plural and gender agreement parallel the rules learned for subjects.

The book’s core example is ضُرِبَ زَيْدٌ. The next source section begins mubtadaʾ and khabar, which belongs to the next lesson.