ف (fāʾ) is letter 20 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between غ ghayn and ق qāf. Its sound is f, as in fish. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ف ف ف ف. It is a moon letter, and its abjad value is 80.
Hear its name, فاء (fāʾ):
Fāʾ in all four positions
Fāʾ joins to the letter before it and to the letter after it, so its shape depends on where it sits in a word. Alone it is ف. At the start of a word it is ف, in the middle ف, and at the end ف.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ف | U+FED1 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ف | U+FED3 | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ف | U+FED4 | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ف | U+FED2 | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+0641 (ARABIC LETTER FEH); the codes in the table, U+FED1 to U+FED4, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Fāʾ is number 15 of the 28 letters by frequency, 2.4% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is initial in 53%, medial in 27%, final in 10% and alone in 10% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce fāʾ
The sound of fāʾ is f, as in fish, written f in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart.
Arabic words with fāʾ
These 5 everyday words show fāʾ in real writing: it is initial in فيل and فانوس; medial in سفر and أصفر; final in صيف. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our page of Islamic phrases in Arabic and our list of colors in Arabic, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Fāʾ here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| فيل | fīl | elephant | initial | |
| سفر | safar | travel | medial | |
| صيف | ṣayf | summer | final | |
| فانوس | fānūs | lantern | initial | |
| أصفر | aṣfar | yellow | medial |
Fāʾ with al-, and its number
Fāʾ is a moon letter, so the l of al- (the) is pronounced before it: الفيل is al-fīl, the elephant (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 80 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like fāʾ
Fāʾ and ق qāf share nearly the same shape when joined, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ف fāʾ: one dot above
- ق qāf: two dots above
Fāʾ has a close English match, so the work is in the shape. Its one dot sits above; its look-alike qāf has two, and joined into a word the two letters are otherwise near identical.
Practise writing fāʾ
Trace it on the free fāʾ tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 66 KB), which prints its four shapes beside فيل (fīl), سفر (safar) and صيف (ṣayf); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with fāʾ: Fatima in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter fāʾ?
The sound of fāʾ (ف) is f, as in fish, written f in transliteration.
Does fāʾ join to the next letter?
Yes. Fāʾ joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ف alone, ف at the start of a word, ف in the middle and ف at the end.
Is fāʾ a sun letter or a moon letter?
A moon letter. Before fāʾ the l of al- is pronounced, so الفيل is al-fīl (the elephant).
Which Arabic letters look like fāʾ?
ف fāʾ has one dot above and ق qāf has two dots above. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.