الدين النصيحة

[Arbazz]

The translation of الدين النصيحة is “Religion is advice.” Since there is no “the” in either part of the sentence, why is ال there in the Arabic? By the way, this is a Hadith.

 

[cherine]

You're asking the question in reverse: it shouldn't be why there's al- in the Arabic, but: why there isn't "the" in the English. And my answer is that "the religion is the advice" is not correct English, and when translating we need to write in a way that is correct and sounds natural in the target language.

 

[Arbazz]

Okay, then my question is why do both nouns have al- on them? What purpose does it serve? Okay, you have to have it on the first noun because you can’t have a mubtada that’s nakirah. But what about the second noun?

 

[Wadi Hanifa]

When referring to a general concept (rather than a specific instance) you also use a definite article, so you wouldn't say "Religion is advice" as in English but you would rather say "Religion is the advice" (similar to languages like French I believe).