Open the Quran to the second page and the very first sentence you meet is a pointing word. ذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ Dhalika l-kitabu la rayba fih, that is the Book, about which there is no doubt. Before you reach a single verb, Allah has already pointed.

Arabic calls these pointing words asma al-isharah, and they are some of the most frequent words in the entire Quran. Get the six core ones solid and a whole layer of the text opens up, because you stop tripping over which word means this and which means that.

What you will learn

• What ism al-isharah means and the two things every Arabic demonstrative encodes
• The 6 demonstratives you need first, each with a verified Quran example
• Why the Quran calls itself dhalika l-kitab, that Book, instead of hatha l-kitab, this Book
• The gender mistake nearly every beginner makes, and the tell that fixes it for good
• A 60-second drill, a 6-question quiz, and a set of flashcards

What exactly is a demonstrative pronoun in Arabic?

Grammarians call it اسْمُ الْإِشَارَةِ, ism al-isharah, literally the noun of pointing. It does exactly what it says: it points at something, a person, an object, an idea, and tells the listener where to look.

Every Arabic demonstrative answers two questions at once. First, how far away is the thing you are pointing at, near or far? Second, what is its gender and number, masculine or feminine, one or many? Change either answer and the word itself changes. English gets by with four words, this, that, these, those. Arabic asks for more precision, and once you see the pattern it is simple to hold in your head.

One more useful fact before the list: these words are mabni, meaning their ending never changes for case the way an ordinary noun’s does. If you have already looked at how i'rab, Arabic case endings, work, demonstratives are a small relief, because you do not need to track a shifting damma, fatha or kasra on them. They stay fixed, and all the grammatical work happens in the noun or sentence around them.

The 6 demonstratives you need first

Classical Arabic has forms for the dual too, which we will touch on briefly, but these six carry almost every sentence you will meet as a beginner.

Near vs far: the mental map

Picture your own hand. Something you could touch without moving your feet gets a near demonstrative, hatha or hadhihi. Something across the room, down the street, or simply not right beside you gets a far demonstrative, dhalika or tilka. Plural works the same way: haula'i for a group right here, ula'ika for a group over there or already spoken of.

The 6 in action: real ayahs, one each

Seeing a word on a flashcard is one thing. Meeting it inside an ayah, doing its actual job, is what makes it stick. Every example below is cited with its exact location so you can open the mus-haf and check it yourself.

Read those six aloud, slowly. You have just handled the opening of Al-Baqarah, the opening of Yusuf, a moment from the story of Sulayman, and a line from the people of the cave, all through six small pointing words.

Why does the Quran say dhalika l-kitab, not hatha l-kitab?

Here is the detail that first pulled me into this topic properly. Dhalika means that, the far demonstrative. Yet the Book being pointed at is not far away at all. It is the very text the reader holds, or the very words being recited. Logically you would expect hatha, this.

Commentators have long noted that Arabic does not reserve the far demonstrative for physical distance alone. It also signals elevation, magnitude, a thing so great in status that ordinary nearness does not capture it. Reaching for dhalika at the start of Al-Baqarah lifts the Book above the everyday sense of “this thing in front of me” and frames it instead as something whose greatness places it, in a manner of speaking, above and beyond. Most English translations still render it as “this is the Book” for smooth reading, but the Arabic itself has chosen the grander word on purpose.

It is a small grammatical choice carrying a large point: even the pronoun Allah uses for His own revelation is doing work, not sitting there by accident.

The mistake nearly every beginner makes

Here is the trap. New learners often pick a demonstrative by translating the English word in their head, this or that, and stop there. But Arabic gender does not always match your intuition. Sabeel (way) is feminine. Kitab (book) is masculine. Shajara, tree, is feminine, while walad, boy, is masculine, and neither tells you so from meaning alone, only from form and usage.

The tell that fixes it for good: before you choose hatha or hadhihi, dhalika or tilka, look at the noun you are about to point at and ask whether it is grammatically feminine, which usually, though not always, means it ends in a taa marbuta. شَجَرَةٌ (shajaratun, a tree) takes hadhihi or tilka. رَجُلٌ (rajulun, a man) takes hatha or dhalika. Train yourself to check the noun first, distance second, and the right word follows automatically.

Test yourself

Flashcards: flip to recall the meaning

Tap a card to turn it over. Front shows the demonstrative, back gives the meaning and the Quran cue you already met above. Run through them once now, then again tomorrow.

Where to take this next

Demonstratives sit right alongside the other building blocks of Arabic sentences. See the full picture in our guide to Arabic grammar and its 7 essential rules, then look at how a demonstrative plus a noun forms a jumla ismiyya, one of the two Arabic sentence types. It is worth pairing this with i'rab, how case endings work, since demonstratives are one of the few word classes that skip that system entirely. You may also enjoy the vocative particle ya, the 8 Arabic question words, and harf al-jarr, the 8 Arabic prepositions.

If you want grammar like this taught step by step, with the reading practice that makes it automatic, the 28-Day Quranic Arabic Course is built for exactly that. It is $37 (was $77) and comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it with nothing to lose. And if vocabulary is where you want to start, grab the free PDF of 50 Quranic root words.

Frequently asked questions

What is ism al-isharah in Arabic grammar?

Ism al-isharah means noun of pointing, the Arabic term for a demonstrative pronoun. It tells the listener how far away something is and matches its gender and number, words like hatha, hadhihi, dhalika and tilka.

What is the difference between hatha and dhalika?

Hatha means this, a masculine singular noun that is near. Dhalika means that, a masculine singular noun that is far, or elevated in status. The feminine equivalents are hadhihi (this) and tilka (that).

Why does the Quran say dhalika l-kitab instead of hatha l-kitab?

Arabic uses the far demonstrative not only for physical distance but also to signal elevation and magnitude. Opening Al-Baqarah with dhalika l-kitab presents the Quran as a Book of such greatness that the ordinary word for “this” understates it.

Do Arabic demonstratives change for dual and plural nouns?

Yes. Beyond the six core singular and plural forms, Arabic has separate dual demonstratives, hadhani and hataani for near, with matching far forms, used specifically when pointing at exactly two things.

How do I know whether to use hadhihi or hatha?

Check the gender of the noun you are pointing at, not the English translation. Feminine nouns, which often but not always end in a taa marbuta, take hadhihi or tilka. Masculine nouns take hatha or dhalika.

Written by Hesham (H's Qalam), UK medical doctor and Quranic Arabic teacher, creator of the 28-Day Quranic Arabic Course.