What is the passive participle in Arabic?

Last time, we saw that the active participle describes the doer of an action.

The passive participle, on the other hand, describes the entity that receives the action or has the action done to it.

In English, participles are based on tense and are used as components of compound verb forms. In Arabic, however, participles are not used to form compound verb tenses.

In Arabic, participles are substantives, they can function as nouns, adjectives, or even as verb substitutes.

This means that, when taken out of context, it is essentially impossible to tell whether a word is functioning as a noun or an adjective, the context is what determines its role.

So keep in mind: Arabic participles are recognizable by their form, but they have multiple functions, like a Swiss Army knife.

Here are some examples of passive participles: