إِنٌ

is used in various ways: first, as a conditional particle, (S, M, Msb, Mughnee, K,) denoting the happening of the second of two events in consequence of the happening of the first, (S, Msb, *) whether the second be immediate or deferred, and whether the condition be affirmative or negative; (Msb;) [and as such it is followed by a mejzoom aorist, or by a pret. having the signification of an aorist;] as in the saying, [إِنْ تَفْعَلٌ أفْعَلٌ If thou do such a thing, I will do it; and] إِنْ تَأْتِنِى اتِكَ [If thou come to me, I will come to thee]; and إِنٌ جِيءْتَنِى أَكْرَمْتُكَ [If thou come to me, I will treat thee with honour]; (S;) and إِنْ فَعَلْتَ فَعَلْتُ [If thou do, I will do] for which the tribe of Teiyi say, as IJ relates on the authority of Ktr, هِنْ فَعَلْتَ فَعَلْتُ; (M;) and إِنْ دَخَلْت الدَّارَ أَوٌ [If thou stand, I will stand]; and إِنْ دَخَلْتِ الدَّارَ أَوْ لَمْ تَدْخُلِى الدَّارض فَأَنْتِ طَالقٌ [If thou enter the house, or if thou enter not the house, thou shalt be divorced]; (Msb;) and [in the Qur'an, 8:39,] إِنْ يَنْتَهُوا يُغْفَرٌ لَهُمْ مَا قَد سَلَفَ [If they desist, what hath already past shall be forgiven them]; and [in verse 19 of the same ch.,] وَإِنْ تَعُودُوا نَعُدْ [But if ye return to attacking the Apostle, we will return to assisting him]. (Mughnee, K.) [On the difference between it and إِذا, see the latter.] When either it or إِذَا is immediately followed by a noun in the nom. case, the said noun is governed in that case by a verb necessarily suppressed, of which it is the agent; as in the saying, in the Qur'an, 9:6, وَإِنْ أَحَدٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ استَجَارَكَ; the complete phrase being وَإِنِ اسْتَجَارَكَ أَحَدٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ اسْتَجَارَكَ [And if any one of the believers in a plurality of gods demand protection of thee, (if) he demand protection of thee]: so according to the generality of the grammarians. (I 'Ak p. 123.) Sometimes it is conjoined with the negative لَا, and the ignorant may imagine it to be the exceptive إِلَّا; as in [the saying in the Qur'an, 9:40,] إِلَّا تَنْصُرُوهُ فَقَد نَصَرَهُ اللّٰهُ [If ye will not aid him, certainly God did aid him]; and [in the next preceding verse,] إِلَّا تَنْفِرُوا يُعَذِّبْكُمْ [If ye will not go forth to war, He will punish you]. (Mughnee, K. *) It is sometimes used to denote one's feigning himself ignorant; as when you say to one who asks, “ Is thy child in the house? ” and thou hast knowledge thereof, إِنْ كَانَ فِى الدَّارِ أَعْلَمْتُكَ بِهِ [If he be in the house, I will inform thee thereof]. (Msb.) And to denote one's putting the knowing in the predicament of the ignorant, in order to incite to the doing or continuing an action; as when you say, إِنٌ كُنْتَ ابُنِى فَأَطِعْنِى [If thou be my son, obey me]; as though you said, “ Thou knowest that thou art my son, and it is incumbent on the son to obey the father, and thou art not obedient; therefore do what thou art commanded to do. ” (Msb.) And sometimes it is divested of the conditional meaning, and becomes synonym with لَو; as in the saying, صَلِّ وَإِنٌ عَجَزْتَ عَنِ القِيَام [Pray thou though thou be unable to stand;] i. e. pray thou whether thou be able to stand or unable to do so; and in the saying, أَكْرِمٌ زِيْدًا وَإِنْ قَعَدَ i. e. [Treat thou Zeyd with honour] though he be sitting; or, whether he sit or not. (Msb.) [إِمَّا as a compound of the conditional إِنٌ and the redundant مَا, see in an article of which اما is the heading.]

[Secondly,] it is a negative, (S, Mughnee, K,) synonym with مَا; (S;) and is put before a nominal proposition; (Mughnee, K;) as in the saying [in the Qur'an, 67:20, إِنِ الْكَافِرُونَ إِلَّا فِى غُرُورٍ [The unbelievers are not in aught save in a deception]; (S, Mughnee, K;) and before a verbal proposition; as in [the Qur'an, 9:108,] إِنْ أَرَدْنَا إِلَّا الْحُسْنَى [We desired not, or meant not, aught save that which is best]. (Mughnee, K.) The assertion of some, that the negative إِنٌ does not occur except where it is followed by إِلَّا, as in the instances cited above, or by لَمَّا, with tesh-deed, which is synonym therewith, as, according to a reading of some of the Seven [Readers], in the saying [in the Qur'an, 86:4, إِنْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ لَمَّا عَلَيْهَا حَافِظٌ, i. e., مَا كُلُّ نَفْسٍ إِلَّا عَلَيْهَا حَافِظٌ [There is not any soul but over it is a guardian], is refuted by the sayings in the Qur'an, 10:69 and lxxii. 26], إِنْ عِندَكُمْ مِنْ سُلْطَانٍ بِهٰذَا [meaning, according to the Jel., Ye have no proof of this that ye say], and إِنْ أَدْرِيأَقَرِيبٌ مَا تُوعَدُونَ [I know not whether that with which ye are threatened be nigh]. (Mughnee, K. *) The conditional and the negative both occur in the saying in the Qur'an, 35:39, وَلَيءِنْ زَالَتَا إِنْ أَمْسَكَهُمَا مِنْ أَحَدٍ مِنْ بَعْدِهِ [And I swear that, if they should quit their place, not any one should withhold them after Him]: the former is conditional; and the latter is negative, and is [part of] the complement of the oath which is denoted by the ل prefixed to the former; the complement of the condition being necessarily suppressed. (Mughnee.) When it is put before a nominal proposition, it has no government, according to Sb and Fr; but Ks and Mbr allow its governing in the manner of لَيْسَ; and Sa'eed Ibn-Jubeyr reads, [in the Qur'an, 7:193,] إِنِ الَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللّٰهِ عِبَادًا أَمْثَالَكُمٌ [Those whom ye invoke beside God, or others than God, are not men like you]: also, the people of El-'Áliyeh have been heard to say, إِنٌ أَحَدٌ خَيْرًامِنْ أَحدٍ إِلَّا بِالعَافِيَةِ [Any one is not better than any other one, except by means of health, or soundness]; and إِنْ ذٰلِكَ نَافِعَكَ وَلَا ضَارَّكَ [That is not profitable to thee nor injurious to thee]: as an example of its occurrence without government, which is mostly the case, the saying of some, قَايءمٌ ↓ إِنَّ may be explained as originally إِنٌ أَنَا قَايءِمٌ [I am not standing]; the أ of أَنَا being elided for no reason in itself, and the ن of إِنٌ being incorporated into the ن of أَنَا, and the ا of this latter being elided in its conjunction with the following word; but إِنَّ قَايءِمًا has also been heard. (Mughnee.) Sometimes it occurs [as a negative] in the complement of an oath: you say, وَاللّٰهِ إِنٌ فَعَلْتُ, meaning مَا فَعَلْتُ [By God, I did not]. (S.)

[Thirdly,] it is a contraction of إِنَّ, and is put before a nominal and before a verbal proposition. (Mughnee, K.) In the former case, it is made to govern and is made to have no government: (S, * K:) [i. e.] in this case, it is allowable to make it govern; contr. to the opinion of the Koofees: (Mughnee:) Lth says that he who uses the contracted form of إِنَّ uses the nom. case with it, except that some of the people of El-Hijáz use the accusative case with it: (T:) thus it is said, according to one reading, [in the Qur'an, 11:113,] إِنْ كُلَّا لَمَا لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمٌ رَبُّكَ أَعْمَالَهُمٌ [Verily all of them, thy Lord will indeed fully render them the recompense of their works]: (T, Mughnee:) Fr says, We have not heard the Arabs use the contracted form and make it to govern, unless with a pronoun, in which case the desinential syntax is not apparent; and he adds that in the instance cited above, they make كُلّا to be governed in the accusative case by ليوفّينّهم; as though the phrase were لَيُوَفِّيَنَّهُمْ كُلَّا; and that كُلُّ would be proper; for you say, إِنْ زَيْدٌ لَقَايءِمٌ [Verily Zeyd is standing]: (T:) the example given by Sb is, إِنْ عَمْرًا لَمُنطَلِقٌ [Verily 'Amr is going away]. (Mughnee.) But it is [most] frequently made to have no government; as in the saying [in the Qur'an, 43:34 according to one reading], وَإِنْ كُلُّ ذٰلِكَ لَمَا مَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا [And verily all that is the furniture of the present life]; and, according to the reading of Hafs, [and of 'Ásim and Kh, in the Qur'an, 20:66, respecting which see إِنَّ,] إِنْ هٰذَانِ لَسَاحِرَانِ [Verily these two are enchanters]; &c. (Mughnee.) When it is put before a verbal proposition, it is necessarily made to have no government: (Mughnee, K:) and in most cases the verb is a preterite and of the kind called نَاسِخ [which effects a change of the grammatical form or of the meaning in a nominal proposition before which it is placed]; as in the saying [in the Qur'an, 2:138, وَإِنْ كَانَتٌ لَكَبِيرَةً [And verily it was a great matter]; and [in the Qur'an, 17:75,] وَإِنْ كَادُوا لَيَفْتِنُونَكَ [And verily they were near to seducing thee]; (Mughnee;) in which last example AZ says, it means لَقَدْ, i. e. without doubt; and so in the same ch. vv. 78 and 108: (T:) less frequently it is an aorist of a verb of this kind; as in the saying [in the Qur'an, 26:186, وَإِنْ نَظُنُّكَ لَمِنَ الْكَاذِبينَ [And verily we think thee to be of the number of the liars]: and both these kinds of expression may be taken as exs. to be imitated: less frequently than this it is a preterite of a verb not of the kind termed نَسخ; as in the saying [of a poet],

شَلَّتٌ يَمِينُكَ إِنٌ قَتَلْتَ لَمُسْلِمًا

[May thy right arm, or hand, dry up, or become unsound! verily thou hast slain a Muslim]; but this may not be taken as an example to be imitated; contr. to the opinion of Akh; for he allows the phrase, إِنْ قِامَ لَأَنَا [Verily I stood], and إِنٌ قَعَدَ لأَنْتَ [Verily thou sattest]: and less frequently than this it is an aorist of a verb not of the kind termed ناسخ; as in the saying, إِنْ يَزِينُكَ لَنَفْسُكَ وَإِنٌ يَشِينُكَ لَهِيَهٌ [Verily thy soul is that which beautifies thee, and it is that which deforms thee]; and this, by common consent, may not be taken as an example to be imitated. (Mughnee.) Wherever you find إِنٌ with لَ after it, decide that it is originally إِنَّ; (Mughnee, K;) as in the exs. above: but respecting this ل there is a difference of opinion: see this letter. (Mughnee.) J says, (TA,) إِنٌ is sometimes a contraction of إِنَّ, and this must have ل put before its predicate, to compensate for what is elided, of the doubled letter; as in the saying in the Qur'an, 86:4, according to him who reads لَمَا instead of لَمَّا], إِنْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ لَمَا عَلَيْهَا حَافِظٌ [Verily every soul hath over it a guardian]; and in the saying, إِنٌ زَيدٌ لَأَخُوكَ [Verily Zeyd is thy brother]; in order that it may not be confounded with إِنٌ which is synonym with the negative مَا: (S, TA:) but IB says, ل is here introduced to distinguish between negation and affirmation, and this إِنْ has neither subject nor predicate; so J's saying that the ل is put before its predicate is without meaning: and this ل is sometimes introduced with the objective complement of a verb; as in إِنْ ضَرَبْتُ لَزَيْدًا [Verily I struck, or beat, Zeyd]; and with the agent; as in إِنْ قَامَ لَزَيْدٌ [Verily Zeyd stood]. (TA.) When the contracted إِنْ governs, this ل is not necessary; so you may say, إِنْ زَيْدًا قَايءِمٌ [Verily Zeyd is standing]; because in this case it cannot be confounded with the negative; for the negative does not render the subject mansoob and the predicate marfooa: and when it does not govern, if the meaning is apparent, the ل is not needed; as in

وَنَحْنُ أُبَاةُ الضَّيْمِ مِنْ الِ مَالِكٍ

وَإِنْ مَالِكٌ كَانَتْ كِرَامَ المَعَادِنِ

[And we are persons who refuse to submit to injury, of the family of Málik: and verily the family of Málik are generous in respect of their origins]; كَانَتْ being here for لَكَانَتٌ. (I 'Ak p. 99.)

[Fourthly,] it is redundant, (S, Mughnee, K,) occurring with مَا; as in the saying, مَا إِنْ يَقُومُ زَيْدٌ [Zeyd does not stand]; (S;) and in the saying [of a poet],

كَا إِنْ أَتَيْتَ بِشْىءٍ أَنْتَ تَكْرَهُهُ

[Thou didst not a thing which thou dislikest]. (Mughnee, K: in the CK اَتْتُ.) It is mostly thus used after the negative ما, when put before a verbal proposition; as above; or before a nominal proposition; as in the saying,

مَنَايَانَا وَدَوْلَةُ اخَرِينَا

وَمَا إِنْ طِبُّنَا جبُنٌ ولٰكِنٌ

[And our habit is not cowardice; but our destinies and the good fortune of others caused our being defeated]: and in this case it prevents the government of ما, as in this verse: but in the saying,

بَنِى غُدَانَةَ مَا إِنْ أَنْتُمُ ذَهَبًا

وَلَا صَرِيفًا وَلٰكِنٌ أَنْتُمُ الخَزَفُ

[Sons of Ghudáneh, ye are not indeed gold, nor silver, or pure silver, but ye are pottery], according to him who relates it thus, saying ذهبًا and صريفًا, in the accusative case, it is explained as a negative, corroborative of ما: (Mughnee:) and according to J, (TA,) the negatives مَا and إِنٌ are sometimes thus combined for corroboration; as in the saying of the rájiz, (El-Aghlab El-'Ijlee, TA,)

أَكْثَرَ مِنْهُ قِرَةً وَقَارَا

مَا إِنٌ رَأَيْنَا مَلِكَّا أَغَارَا

[We have not indeed seen a king who has made a hostile incursion possessing more numerous sheep, or goats, and camels, than he]; (S, TA;) but IB says that ان is here redundant, not a negative. (TA.) Sometimes it is redundant after the conjunct noun مَا; as in the saying,

يُرَجِىّ المَرْإُ مَا إِنٌ لَا يَرَاهُ

وَتَعْرِضُ دُونَ أَدْنَاهُ الخُطُوبُ

[Man hopes for that which he will not see; for calamities intervene as obstacles in the way to what is nearest thereof]. (Mughnee.) And after the مَا termed مَصْدَرِيَّة, (Mughnee,) [i. e.,] after the adverbial مَا [which is of the kind termed مصدريّة]; (TA;) as in the saying (of Maaloot El-Kurey'ee, cited by Sb, TA),

وَرَجِّ الفَتَى لِلْخَيْرِ مَا إِنْ رَأَيْتَهُ

عَلَي السِّنِّ خَيْرًا لَايَزَالُ يَزِيدُ

[And hope thou that the youth is destined for good as long as thou hast seen him not ceasing to increase in good with age]. (Mughnee.) And after the inceptive أَلَا; as in the saying,

أَلَا إِنْ سَرَى لَيْلِى فبِتُّ كَيءِيبَا

أُحَاذِرُ أَنْ تَنْأَى النَّوَى بِغَضُوبَا

[Now he journeyed on, or during, that my night, and I passed the night in an evil state, broken in spirit by grief, being fearful that the distance to which he was going with Ghadoob (a woman so named) would become far]. (Mughnee.) And before the meddeh denoting disapproval: [for] Sb heard a man, on its being said to him, “ Wilt thou go forth if the desert become plentiful in herbage? ” reply, أَأَنَا إِنِيهٌ [What, I, indeed?] disapproving that he should think otherwise than that. (Mughnee. [See also article انى.])

[Fifthly,] it is synonym with قَدْ: so it is said to be in the saying [in the Qur'an, 87:9, إِنْ نَفَعَتِ الذِّكْرَى [Admonition hath profited], (T, Mughnee, K,) by IAar (T) and by Ktr: (Mughnee:) and Abu-l-' Abbás relates that the Arabs say, إِنٌ نَفَعَتِ الذِّكْرَى meaning قَدْقَامَ زَيْدٌ [Zeyd has stood]; and he adds, that Ks states his having heard them say so, and having thought that it expressed a condition, but that he asked them, and they answered that they meant قَدْقَامَ زَيْدٌ, and not مَا قَامَ زَيْدٌ. (T.) [So too, according to the K, in all the exs. cited in the next sentence as from the Mughnee; but this is evidently a mistake, occasioned by an accidental omission.]

[Sixthly,] it is asserted also by the Koofees, that it is synonym with إِذْ, in the following exs.: in the Qur'an, 5:62, وَاتَّقُوا اللّٰهَ إِنٌ كُنْتُمْ مُوءْمِنِينَ [And fear ye God, because ye are believers: and so, according to AZ, as is said in the T, in a similar instance in the Qur'an, 2:278: and in the same, iv. 62]: and [in the Qur'an, 48:27,] لَتَدْ خُلُنَّ المَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَ إِنْ شَاءَ امِنِينَ [Ye shall assuredly enter the sacred mosque, because God hath willed, in security]: and in like instances, when the verb therein expresses what is held sure to happen or to have happened: and in the saying,

أَتَغْضَبُ إِنٌ أُدْنَا قُتَيْبَةَ حُزَّتَا

جِهَارًا وَلَمْ تَغْضَبْ لِقَتْلِ ابْنِ حَازِمِ

[Art thou angry because the ears of Kuteybeh have been cut, openly, or publicly, and wast not angry for the slaughter of Ibn-Házim?]: (Mughnee:) but in all these instances [it is sufficiently obvious that] ان may be otherwise explained. (Mughnee, K.)

[Seventhly,] it is sometimes synonym with إِذَا; as in the Qur'an, 9:23, لَا تَتَّخِذُوا ابَاءَكُمْ وَإِخْوَانَكُمْ أَوْلِيَاءَ إِنِ اسْتَحَبُّوا الْكُفْرَعَلَى الْإِيمَانِ [Take not ye your fathers and your brethren as friends when they love unbelief above belief]; and in the same [xxxiii. 49], وَامْرَأَةً مُوءْمِنَةً إِنْ وَهَبَتْ نَفْسَهَا لِلنَّبِىّ [And a believing woman when she giveth herself to the Prophet]: so says AZ. (T.)

[Eighthly,] it is used for إِمَّا, (Mughnee and K, voce إِمَّا,) distinct from إِمَّا which is a compound of the conditional إِنٌ and the redundant مَا. (Mughnee ibid.) [See an example in a verse cited voce إِمَّا in the present work, commencing with the words سَقَتْهُ الرَّوَاعِدُ.]