I'rab of Surah At-Takwir Ayah 13: word by word Arabic grammar
Surah At-Takwir (التكوير) · Meccan · Ayah 13
وَإِذَا ٱلْجَنَّةُ أُزْلِفَتْ TransliterationWa idha al-jannatu uzlifat
MeaningAnd when Paradise is brought near.
This is the last of a long chain of time clauses opening the surah. "And when Paradise is brought near" begins with the connective wa and the conditional adverb idha. Al-jannah is the doer of the passive verb uzlifat ("is brought near"), and the whole clause adds to the previous "when" clauses that all await one answer in verse 14.
Word by word i'rab
connective particle plus time adverb (zarf)
The prefixed wa joins this clause to the earlier "when" clauses, while idha is a future-time adverb pointing to the answer clause in verse 14.
indeclinablesubject (fa'il) of an implied verb explained by what follows
Al-jannah is nominative as the doer of an understood verb that the following passive verb interprets and clarifies.
nominativepassive past verb with hidden pronoun subject
Uzlifat is a passive past-tense verb meaning "is brought near," its concealed subject referring back to al-jannah, and the taa is the feminine marker.
indeclinableDetailed i'rab
Verse 13 is one more link in the series of conditional time clauses that have run since verse 1, each introduced by idha and each still waiting for a single answer. The wa is a connective tying this clause to its predecessors. Idha functions as a future-time adverb (zarf) whose governing element is the deferred answer found in verse 14, "a soul will know." The noun al-jannah is nominative because Arabic grammar treats a noun after idha as the subject (fa'il) of a verb that is omitted but explained by the verb that follows it; here that verb is the passive uzlifat, "is brought near." Uzlifat is built for the passive, its agent unnamed, and its hidden pronoun subject points back to Paradise. The feminine taa agrees with al-jannah. The clause as a whole is interpretive, carrying no separate grammatical position.
Frequently asked
Why is al-jannah nominative rather than accusative after idha?
Because grammarians parse the noun following idha as the subject of an omitted verb that the visible verb (here uzlifat) explains. As a subject it takes the nominative case, shown by the final damma.
What does the passive verb uzlifat tell us grammatically?
Uzlifat is a passive past verb, so its agent is unnamed and its subject is a hidden pronoun standing for al-jannah. The feminine taa at the end agrees with the feminine noun Paradise.