جمع المذكر السالم — Sound Masculine Plural
The Sound Masculine Plural (jamʿ mudhakkar sālim) is a "sound" plural — so-called because the root letters remain intact (sālim = unbroken), unlike broken plurals (jamʿ mukassar) which rearrange the root.
It adds ُون in the marfūʿ state and ِين in the manṣūb and majrūr states.
When Is the Sound Masculine Plural Used?
Standard Conditions
Two categories of nouns take the sound masculine plural by rule (qiyāsī):
| Category | Condition | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Proper names of males | Any proper male name | المحمدون، الإبراهيمون |
| Derived adjectives/nouns (مشتق) referring to male humans | Noun must describe a quality; must be applicable to males | صالِحون، مُهندِسون، مُسلِمون |
Proper Name + Al
When a proper name is pluralised it is no longer a proper name — it refers to a group. At that point, Al can be prefixed (previously impossible with proper names):
جاء الإبراهيمون — "The Ibrahims came" (group of people named Ibrahim)
The Rule About Derived vs Non-Derived (Jāmid)
جامد (jāmid) nouns — those not derived from a verb, describing no quality (e.g. كتاب، رجل، ولد) — generally do not take the sound masculine plural. They take broken plurals instead.
مشتق (mushtaqq) nouns — derived from a verb, describing a quality applicable to a male human — can take the sound masculine plural.
Exceptions (Samāʿī)
Some important nouns take the sound masculine plural by convention, even though they do not meet the standard conditions. These must be memorised:
| Noun | Meaning | Sound Plural |
|---|---|---|
| عالَم | world | عالَمُون / عالَمِين |
| أهل | family / community | أَهلُون / أَهلِين (also broken: أَهالِي) |
| سَنة | year | سِنُون / سِنِين (also: سَنَوَات) |
| أرض | earth | أَرَضُون / أَرَضِين |
| مِئة | hundred | مِئُون / مِئِين (also: مِئَات) |
| لغة | language | لُغُون / لُغِين |
Multiples of ten (20–90) also follow the sound masculine plural pattern: عِشرُون، ثَلاثُون... → manṣūb/majrūr: عِشرِين...
Nūn Dropped in Iḍāfah
The nūn of the sound masculine plural is dropped when the noun becomes muḍāf:
رَبُّ العالَمِين — not رَبُّ العالَمِينَ (the nūn is dropped) ذَوُون → ذَوُو المال (possessors of wealth — nūn dropped)
This is because the nūn in the SMP serves a function similar to tanwīn (marking indefiniteness), and tanwīn is also dropped in iḍāfah.
When Is It NOT Used — The Restrictive Conditions (from a Tafsīr Footnote)
A footnote in the tafsīr of Sūrah Yūsuf laid out the conditions more rigorously: only two categories of اسم may take جمع المذكر السالم — proper names of men, and adjectives meeting specific criteria. Every other noun defaults to a broken plural.
Proper Names — Conditions
- Must be the name of a man — a human male, never an object or a female (e.g. زَيْد → زَيْدُونَ).
- Names ending in ة (e.g. طَلْحَة) are disputed:
Baṣrī vs. Kūfī Disagreement — see [[arabic-grammar-schools]]
- Baṣrī school: not permissible to form a جمع مذكر سالم from such names at all.
- Kūfī school: permissible — but the ة is dropped first, giving طَلْحُونَ (not طَلْحَتُونَ).
Adjectives — Conditions
- Must take ة in the feminine (masculine/feminine distinguished by ة — i.e. it must be مُؤَنَّث-able)
- Must not be on the pattern أَفْعَل / فَعْلَاء (e.g. أَحْمَر / حَمْرَاء) — these patterns have their own dedicated plurals
- Must not be a word used identically for both genders (مُشْتَرَك بَين المُذَكَّر والمُؤَنَّث)
Why حَائِض, صَبُور, and جَرِيح Are Excluded
- حَائِض (a menstruating woman) — used only for females; the masculine/feminine contrast جمع مذكر سالم relies on simply doesn't exist for it.
- صَبُور (patient) and جَرِيح (wounded) — used identically for both genders (عَبدٌ صَبُورٌ / اِمْرَأَةٌ صَبُورٌ, no extra ة) — so there is no ة-based contrast to build a sound plural on.
مُسْلِم — A Clean Example That Satisfies Every Condition
مُسْلِم is free of all exclusionary conditions: takes ة in the feminine (مُسْلِمَة), is not on the أَفْعَل/فَعْلَاء pattern, and is not shared identically between genders. Hence the regular مُسلِمُونَ / مُسلِمِينَ.
Open Question — عَلَّامَة (Homework)
A student asked whether عَلَّامَة (an exaggerated/intensive form of عَالِم — "a great scholar") is excluded for the same reason as صَبُور/جَرِيح (used for both genders). The teacher had not read this directly but suspected it might be the case, and set it as homework for the group — an open thread to revisit.
هُمْ and جمع المذكر السالم Are Reserved for the Sentient
Beyond morphology, there is a semantic restriction worth noting: both جمع المذكر السالم and the masculine plural pronoun هُمْ are characteristically reserved for عُقَلَاء — sentient, rational beings (jinn, angels, humans). When the Qurʾān uses them for inanimate things — e.g. رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ (Yūsuf 12:4), where هُمْ and سَاجِدِينَ refer to the stars, sun and moon — it is raising their status, attributing to them an act ordinarily only performed by rational beings. This is not poetic personification (which has its own distinct grammatical rules in Arabic and is, by nature, imaginative) — the Qurʾān is describing something real. See [[broken-plural-pronoun]] and [[taghlib]] for related pronoun-agreement phenomena.
Comparison: Sound Plural vs Broken Plural
| Sound Masculine Plural (جمع مذكر سالم) | Broken Plural (جمع مكسر) |
|---|---|
| Root letters intact | Root letters rearranged into a new pattern |
| Only for male humans (mostly) | For anything — male, female, non-human |
| One standard pattern (+ون/ين) | Many different patterns |
| Qiyāsī with exceptions | Mostly samāʿī |
Session References
- Selections from the Glorious Quran Session 3: Full explanation with examples from Sūrat al-Fātiḥah vocabulary (ʿĀlam, Ahl, Arḍ, Sanah, Miʾah, Lughah); jāmid vs mushtaqq distinction; exceptions as samāʿī.
- Surah Yusuf Session 6: Tafsīr-footnote conditions for forming جمع مذكر سالم — proper names (male, Baṣrī/Kūfī dispute on names ending in ة) and adjectives (must take ة, must not be on أَفْعَل/فَعْلَاء, must not be shared between genders); مُسْلِم as the clean example; عَلَّامَة left as an open question; the semantic restriction of هُمْ/جمع مذكر سالم to sentient beings, applied to رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ (Āyah 4).