-1

'al' means 'the' in Arabic, much like ה in Hebrew.

But what about the abundance/ frequency of 'al' in الحرم الشريف, the latter in the sense of the English proper noun 'Temple Mount'? Can any of the 'al'-s be omitted without losing the meaning 'Temple Mount'? I often see and hear the transliteration 'Haram al-Sharif', and less often 'al-Haram al-Sharif', but when looking up arabic terms for 'Temple Mount' it's never with exactly one 'al', but two 'al'-s. What is the general principle here?

user44903
  • 1

1 Answers1

2

شريف is an adjective, meaning "noble, excellent".

In Arabic (and Hebrew) definite noun phrases require the article on adjectives as well as the head.

Colin Fine
  • 7,454
  • 22
  • 28
  • Arabic: So indefinite noun phrase would be 'حرم شريف' ? And the transliteration 'Haram al-Sharif' wrong (incomplete), as it better be 'al-Haram al-Sharif' for 'Temple Mount' ? – user44903 Mar 12 '24 at 18:00
  • Hebrew: 'Temple Mount' is הַר הַבַּיִת , isn't it? (Exactly) one Hebrew definite article in conjunction with Status constructus. (By the way: If I were to add בְּ (preposition 'in') to הַר הַבַּיִת, where exactly to place the בְּ ? I suppose it replaces the הַ inheriting its ַ , correct? ) – user44903 Mar 12 '24 at 18:22
  • 1
    @user44903: as you say, the Hebrew is a phrase of two nouns, the head in the construct state. Only the qualifier takes definite marking. And no, if you add a preposition, it attaches to the whole phrase, i.e. to the head, so you get בְּהַר הַבַּיִת This is a fundamentally different syntactic construction from a noun qualified by an adjective. In Hebrew that would be "hehar hagadol" (I may have the first vowel wrong, my Hebrew is rusty) - 'the mountain the big' = "the big mountain", and if you wanted the preposition be-, that would indeed coalesce with the first -ha (but not the second). – Colin Fine Mar 12 '24 at 19:15
  • @user44903, "Haram al-Sharif" would make sense only if "Sharif" can function as a noun. It may have that use, I don't know (Wiktionary doesn't list it). – Colin Fine Mar 12 '24 at 19:18
  • 'Wiktionary doesn't list it', true. And even if there's some noun شريف, 'Haram al-Sharif' is still indefinite, isn't it? But in general media, even TV, they always use 'Haram al-Sharif' and so far I have no explanation for that. Strange. (Concerning the Hebrew stuff, you are probably correct.) – user44903 Mar 12 '24 at 20:03
  • No, if sharif were a noun, then Haram al-Sharif would be definite, like Hebrew בֵּית הַכְּנֶסֶת⁩ as opposed to indefinite בַּיִת כְּנֶסֶת⁩. – Colin Fine Mar 12 '24 at 21:58
  • I'm confused now. Yes, בַּיִת כְּנֶסֶת⁩ (synagogue) is indefinite, and yes, בֵּית הַכְּנֶסֶת (the synagogue) is definite, because of הַ in qualifier and construct state. Hebrew case is clear. Regarding Arabic case, I understand الحرم الشريف not an 'adjacency', סמיכות-like construction. But simply a definite noun-adjective-phrase ('the noble sanctuary'), where Arabic requires 'al' before both, noun and adjective, to be definite. – user44903 Mar 13 '24 at 01:33
  • Assuming شريف is also noun, then clearly الشريف is definite, but حرم الشريف as whole is not, is it ? – user44903 Mar 13 '24 at 01:40
  • OK, I checked Wiki. You are correct that حرم الشريف as a whole is definite, because of definiteness of quantifier. It's a case of إضافة then. The essential question still is whether شريف is actually noun in Arabic. – user44903 Mar 13 '24 at 02:07
  • OK, some sources say such noun exists, meaning 'nobleman', 'noble' etc.…But now we reached a dead end, because the first noun in an إضافة-construction mustn't be definite. So الحرم الشريف can't be construed as 'the mountain of the nobleman'. Thus the answer to my question should be 'definite noun-adjective-phrase', thus the transliteration 'Haram al-Sharif' is incorrect. – user44903 Mar 13 '24 at 02:35
  • So Fine's initial answer is short and correct. But why do everybody in the (western) world say 'Haram al-Sharif' instead of 'al-Haram al-Sharif' ? On TV in Germany, on Wikipedia etc. – user44903 Mar 13 '24 at 02:51
  • 1
    I would hazard a guess that it's because they recognise the initial al- and remove it in translation, but aren't aware that the second al- is also part of the definit marker, or that removing one but not the other makes it look like a different construction in Arabic. – Colin Fine Mar 13 '24 at 15:09
  • 1
    @user44903 - I completely agree with Colin Fine. Just note how Wikipedia uses 'the Haram al-Sharif, or al-Ḥaram ash-Sharīf' in the 1st sentence here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount#Haram_al-Sharif — it looks like for them 'Haram al-Sharif' is an English word/term which gets its article acc. to the rules of English, while 'al-Ḥaram ash-Sharīf' is a transliterated Arabic phrase with all of its articles Arabic-style. – Yellow Sky Mar 13 '24 at 21:19