The Ultimate Guide to the Arabic Passive Voice (المبني للمجهول)

The passive voice (المَبْني للمَجْهولِ) is rare in Arabic. This has to do with the nature of Arabic, which is very different from English in terms of the passive voice. But the good news is that the rules of the Arabic passive voice are actually quite simple.

Please note: If you are viewing this page on a mobile phone, the tables may be a little confusing. It is best to read this page on your desktop to get all the details.

Introduction

The passive voice in Arabic is quite sophisticated. Let’s first check the characteristics of the passive voice:

• The subject of active verbs performs the action: The student writes a book.
• The subject of passive verbs (= object of active verbs) undergoes the action: The book was written.

Let’s first check the DNA of the passive voice in English:

• The English passive voice lets you mention the doer of an action (= actual subject).
• We could say that the passive voice in English is more or less a stylistic variant of the active voice.

Now let’s look at some finer points of the Arabic passive voice:

• In Arabic, strictly speaking, we have to remove the doer of the action in the passive voice! The actual doer (= the subject of the active voice = الْفاعِلُ) simply disappears.
• The passive voice in Arabic is generally only used for anonymous speech.
• In Arabic, the direct object (مَفْعُولٌ بِهِ) becomes the “subject-like” of the passive verb (نائِبُ الْفاعِلِ). Note that نائِبُ الْفاعِلِ literally means the deputy of the doer.
• Since we have to remove the actual doer of the action in the Arabic passive, we can go so far as to say that the active and passive versions are not the same. That’s because the Arabic passive voice works entirely different.
• If it is important to mention the performer of the action in Arabic, use a verb in the active voice (الْمَعْلُومُ) instead.

We will now focus on how to form the passive voice in Arabic using verbs.

The construction of the Arabic passive voice

Let’s first see some finesses of the Arabic passive voice.

GOOD TO KNOW! Theoretically, when talking about people, you can avoid the passive voice if you don’t know who is doing the action or you don’t want to name the subject. The trick is that in such situations you can also use the active voice with the singular subject الْمَرْءُ (= one) or the plural subject النّاسُ (= the people). However, the passive voice is more common to express impersonal information.

Vowel pattern of passive verbs in Arabic

The regular passive voice is easily built in Arabic using these two vowel patterns:

Sounds complicated? Let’s put it all in a table.

But watch out! Verbs of these stems do not always convey a passive meaning! For example, the VII-verb انْدَفَعَ – يَنْدَفِعُ إِلَى denotes to rush to; to proceed blindly like in to rush to the front (اِنْدَفَعَ إِلَى المُقَدِّمةِ).

In many situations, however, these stems do express a passive or reflexive meaning in the active voice, which we will now look at.

Special features of Arabic stems

V-stem can express a passive meaning of the II-stem

The V-stem can express a passive and reflexive meaning of the II-stem

VII-stem can express a passive meaning of the I- (or II-) stem

The اِنْفَعَلَ verb form was described by early Arabic grammarians as one of the verbs of receptivity (أَفْعالُ الْمُطاوَعَةِ). A famous example: I broke it; therefore it broke. (كَسَرْتُهُ فَاِنْكَسَرَ). The اِنْفَعَلَ verb form may have been an old Semitic passive form that survived in Arabic and Hebrew. The passive in Hebrew, for example, is expressed by the verb stem Nifal (נִפְעַל); Hebrew, by the way, has seven major verb stems.

Interestingly, in contemporary Arabic dialects, the passive voice is almost always expressed using the pattern اِنْفَعَلَ.

VIII-stem can express a passive meaning of the I- (or II-) stem

Verbs with weak or doubled root letters

Let’s see how this goes.

• الْمُضاعَف : This pattern rarely causes any difficulties. Interestingly, though fairly rare, some verbs with doubled root letters are more common in the passive than in the active. One example is the VIII-verb اضْطَرَّ – يَضْطَرُّ which means to force. It is usually used in the passive (= to be forced): اُضْطُرَّ – يُضْطَرُّ.
• الْمِثالُ : first root letter is و or ي. The و may get omitted; the ي stays always.
• الْأَجْوَفُ : middle root letter is و or ي or ا. They almost always have an ا (Aleph) in the middle. But watch out! Speaking of roots, the ا can never be part of the root, but is either ي or و. The good news is that hollow verbs are rarely used in the passive voice.
• النّاقِصُ : the last root letter is و or ي or ا. Similar to الْأَجْوَفُ verbs, the ا (Aleph) is in its origin either و or ي (when you look at the root).

You don’t really need to know much more about the passive voice in Arabic, especially since it is rarely used anyway and should therefore be used sparingly.