Seventeen times a day, at the very least, a Muslim says صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ. That is Surah al-Fatiha 1:7, recited in every obligatory rak’ah, and its second word is a tiny hinge that most learners rush past: alladhina.

That one word is the doorway into Arabic relative pronouns, the family that gives you “who”, “which” and “that”. Learn it properly and long Quranic sentences stop being a blur. You can see where one idea ends and the next begins.

What you’ll learn

• The six main relative pronouns and which noun each one pairs with
• The three-part method for reading any relative clause: pronoun, sila and returning pronoun
• Why alladhi appears after some nouns and disappears after others
• How man and ma work as “the one who” and “that which”
• A 60-second exercise and a five-question quiz

What is a relative pronoun in Arabic?

The grammarians call it ism mawsul (اِسْمٌ مَوْصُولٌ), literally a “connected noun”. The name tells you the job. It cannot stand alone and mean something. It must be connected to a clause that finishes its meaning, and that clause is called the sila (صِلَةٌ), the “connector”.

Picture a hook and a ribbon. The relative pronoun is the hook, fixed onto a noun you have already named. The sila is the ribbon that hangs from it and tells you which noun, or what kind. “The month” is a vague thing. “The month in which the Quran was sent down” is Ramadan, and everything after the hook is the ribbon.

What are the six relative pronouns you need?

They change for gender and number, exactly like the demonstratives you may have met in our guide to Arabic demonstrative pronouns. Here is the working set.

Notice the pattern. The pronoun agrees with the noun it hooks onto, in gender and in number. The singular and the plural forms keep the same ending whatever their role in the sentence, which means you never have to worry about case endings on alladhi, allati or alladhina. Only the dual shifts, the same way every Arabic dual does. If that idea is new, our post on Muthanna, the Arabic dual covers it.

How do you read a relative clause in three steps?

Nearly everyone stalls here at first, because English hides the machinery. We just say “the man who came” and move on. Arabic shows every part, and once you can name the parts you can read any clause on sight.

Take the three pieces in this order:

1. The noun being described. Gender and number decide which pronoun you need.
2. The relative pronoun. It matches that noun.
3. The sila. A full clause that contains a pronoun pointing back to the noun. This pointer is called the ’a’id (عَائِدٌ), the “returning” pronoun.

The returning pronoun is the part learners miss, so watch for it in a real verse. Here is the verse about Ramadan.

The noun is shahr, masculine singular, so the pronoun is alladhi. The sila is unzila fihi al-qur’an. And the returning pronoun is the hi in fihi, which sends your mind straight back to the month. Without it the clause would float loose.

The same structure appears in the opening surah itself.

Here the noun is plural, so the hook is alladhina. The sila is an’amta ’alayhim, and the returning pronoun is hum inside ’alayhim. Now you can recite it knowing what each piece does. If you want the pronoun side of this, see how the attached and detached forms work in Arabic pronouns (dhamair).

Which pronoun goes with which noun in the Quran?

Match the pronoun to the noun, not to the sila. Three verses show the three everyday cases.

The noun rabbakum is masculine singular, so alladhi. For a feminine singular noun, switch to allati.

An-nar is grammatically feminine, so the hook is allati. The sila here is a noun sentence, waqooduha an-nasu, and the returning pronoun is the ha at the end of waqooduha. So a sila can be verbal, as in 2:185, or nominal, as here. For the difference between those two sentence types, revisit Jumla Ismiyya vs Fi’liyya.

The plural pronoun is followed by a verb. The returning pronoun is the waw of yu’minuna, the “they” hidden inside the verb. This is one of the first verses in the Quran after the Fatiha, and it is a perfect specimen. If you want to see how the doers and receivers work in such clauses, our post on Ism al-Fa’il and Ism al-Maf’ul goes deeper.

Why does the pronoun sometimes disappear?

This is the rule that surprises people, and it is worth getting right. A relative pronoun is used after a definite noun. After an indefinite noun, Arabic simply drops the hook and lets the clause describe the noun directly.

Kitabun carries tanween, so it is indefinite. There is no alladhi, yet anzalnahu still works as a relative clause, with hu as the returning pronoun. Put it side by side with 2:185: shahr is made definite by being the first half of an idafa with Ramadan, and so alladhi appears. The difference between a definite and an indefinite noun decides the hook. Our guide to the Idafa rule explains why that first word counts as definite.

What about Man and Ma?

Two shorter words do the same job without needing a noun to hook onto. Man means “the one who” and is used for people. Ma means “that which” and is used for things. The famous Ayat al-Kursi has both in one breath.

In the first, ma carries the sila fi as-samawati, a phrase built with the preposition fi, as in Harf al-Jarr and the Arabic prepositions. In the second, a question word, a pointer and a relative pronoun all stack together: man dha alladhi. A literal gloss is “who is this one who”. That kind of stacking looks frightening until you read it piece by piece.

What are the common beginner mistakes?

The first is matching the pronoun to the wrong noun. In 2:24 the sila mentions an-nas, people, but the pronoun is allati because it hooks onto an-nar. Always find the noun being described first.

The second is hunting for a pronoun when the noun is indefinite. If the noun has tanween, expect a bare descriptive clause, as in 6:155.

The third is forgetting the returning pronoun, or mistaking it for the main subject. Underline it, every time, until your eye finds it automatically.

The fourth is translating every alladhina as “those who” by reflex. Sometimes English wants “who”, sometimes “those who”, sometimes “the ones whom”. Let the sila decide.

A quick comparison

Can you try it in 60 seconds?

Open your mushaf to Surah al-Fatiha and find the word alladhina in the last verse. Say aloud the noun it hooks onto, the sila that follows, and the returning pronoun inside it. Then do the same for 2:3. If you can point at all three pieces in both verses, you have it.

Test Yourself

FAQ

What is the relative pronoun in Arabic called?

It is called ism mawsul, the connected noun. It always needs a following clause, called the sila, to complete its meaning.

What is the difference between alladhi and alladhina?

Alladhi is masculine singular and alladhina is masculine plural. Pick the one that matches the noun you are describing.

What is the returning pronoun in a relative clause?

It is a pronoun inside the sila that points back to the noun being described, such as hi in fihi in Surah al-Baqarah 2:185.

Do I always need alladhi after a noun?

No. It is used after definite nouns. After an indefinite noun, Arabic uses a plain descriptive clause, as in Surah al-An’am 6:155.

If you want the bigger picture, read our Arabic grammar guide with 7 essential rules, then see how a different small word group works in Inna and its sisters.

Where does this take you?

Look at who the Quran uses alladhina for: those who believe, those who give, those who remember. Whole portraits of people are built with this one hook, and the Fatiha asks Allah for the path of those He has favoured. You will never recite that line in the same way again once you can see how it is built.

If you want a structured route through grammar and vocabulary together, the 28-Day Quranic Arabic Course is $37 (was $77) and includes a 7-day money-back guarantee. You can start free with the free PDF of 50 Quranic root words, and keep going with our complete Quranic Arabic roadmap.

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