Maadhi Variations Part 1 - Qad
The Present Perfect (near past)
صرف Practice
تَصْرِيْفُ فَعَلَ
0 / 36In this lesson, we will learn about قَدْ, which is a Harf that can appear before the Maadhi Verb. It modifies the meaning from "simple past" to that of "near past".
The Present Perfect Tense (near past)
The present perfect tense is when an action occurred in the past but happened recently, such as "he has stood up", as opposed to simply saying "he stood up". The latter gives no indication of when the action occurred except for sometime in the past, whereas the first one gives us the additional hint that it happened recently.
In Arabic, we achieve this meaning using the Harf قَدْ before the Maadhi:
- قَدْ نَصَرَ → نَصَرَ
He helped → He has helped - قَدْ فَعَلَ → فَعَلَ
He did → He has done - قَدْ نُصِرَ → نُصِرَ
He was helped → He has been helped - قَدْ فُعِلَ → فُعِلَ
It was done → It has been done
The last two examples are passive examples. Remember that the active verb places the focus on the subject and the passive verb places the focus on the object.
As additional practice, you should practice the Maadhi conjugation table with قَدْ at the beginning of each conjugation, active and passive.
The Harf قَدْ actually has 6 meanings, of which the past present perfect is just one. It is very common in Arabic for words to have multiple meanings, many of which can differ quite significantly. You will come across the other meanings of قَدْ in future lessons إن شاء ﷲ.
You will also have come across the phrase, قَدْ قَامَتِ الصَلَاةٌ. The verb قَامَ - يَقُوْمُ means to stand, to erect, to establish. And so this phrase can be translated as "The time of the rising to prayer has just come/been established."
You will notice that the translation for قَدْ قَامَتِ الصَلَاةٌ, "The time of the rising to prayer has just come/been established," seems to include words that are not there. This is common in Arabic and when translating. The depths of meanings and the numerous ways words are used often require some thought in order to translate the essence of what the original Arabic intended.
Were we to take the dictionary definition of all of the words, we could translate it as "The prayer has erected, has stood, has risen", and a bit less awkwardly, "the prayer has begun".
Finally, there is no negation of a verb that comes with قَدْ. We can say ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ, Zaid went, and use the harf مَا to negate it, مَا ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ, Zaid did not go. We can also say قَدْ ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ, Zaid has/has just gone. But it would be a mistake to say مَا قَدْ ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ, in an attempt to try and say "Zaid has not gone". مَا never combines with قَدْ.
Summary
The Harf قَدْ has 6 meanings. In this lesson, we learn one of its meanings, which is to take a past tense Maadhi verb and take it to the near past (Present Perfect tense).- قَدْ نَصَرَ → نَصَرَ
He helped → He has helped - قَدْ فَعَلَ → فَعَلَ
He did → He has done - قَدْ نُصِرَ → نُصِرَ
He was helped → He has been helped - قَدْ فُعِلَ → فُعِلَ
It was done → It has been done