Question

Dear Brothers and Sisters

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah 

Thank you very much for your help on your wonderful site. My questions today are about the last part of 5:32 (Al-Maida, Verse 32). There we read "wa laqad jaa'at-hum rusulunaa..."

Could you please (a) explain to us why the feminine form "jaa'at" is used instead of "jaa'a"--the form grammatically used for a group of men or a group of men and women--and (b) provide other similar cases in the Glorious Book, if possible? 

I have seen some explanation that may apply to this point in a non-Muslim grammar book, but it seems always better to first turn to the authority of Muslim experts.  

Wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh and jazakum Allahu khairan.

The plural of , or messenger is   as indicated in your question.  This type of plural is an irregular plural and called  (literally, broken plural).  Irregular plurals maybe feminine in gender even though the singular form is masculine, and refers to something masculine.  There are times when an irregular plural is masculine in gender when it refers to an intelligent being, but not always.  An example is man , which in its irregular plural form is .   This is plural masculine in form and not feminine.  We could not find another example of a male singular noun referring to an intelligent being that was female in the irregular plural form in the Glorious Qur'an.  

All inanimate male singular objects are feminine in the irregular plural form, such as the male gender word for book  and the feminine gender irregular plural:  as in aayah 3 of Al-Bayyinah:  . 

Other examples of   used as feminine in gender are:

 Al-An'aam 34

  Ibraaheem 10

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.