FS

6th July, 2011

The noun here is to be labelled as feminine instead of masculine?

N-accusative feminine singular noun

wallahu a'alam

islamicstriver

6th July, 2011

the ة at the end of words has other purposes in addition to labelling feminine, e.g.

in roots where first letter of root is either waw or ya the verbal noun drops its 1st letter of root and to compensate for that a is ة added at te end

Nomina Visis, the nouns that express doing of an action once are also formed by adding this ة at the end.

Nouns of kind have the form فِعْلَة i.e. again with ة

To add intensity ة is added at the end

Nouns of abundance also have a ة at the end

and has other purposes also, so in short, ة has many purposes

In some forms plural has the ة while singular doesn't have it.

The word in question is plural of إِلَٰهٌ and is not feminine.

FS

6th July, 2011

Yes, I agree with the points you have made and that could be the case- the amazing Arabic language has such unique qualities about it!

With this particular noun I only added feminine here considering that the singular is الاهة [ilaa-ha-tun]. According to Ibn Mandhoor (Lisaan al Arab pg. 140 Beirut published 2003 copy) the singular is feminine (used to refer to beings worshipped in Pre-Islamic Arabia, and looking at it just now I realised that he uses this verse to illustrate his point.

Having said that he also lists it as a plural for the singular الاه [ilaah]- so it seems both are possible.

Wallahu a'alam

islamicstriver

6th July, 2011

Qur'an will clarify itself. Kindly click the link concordance and see all entries, some singular, some plural