al-Nās— Mankind

Every reader pronounces the nūn of al-nās with fatḥ, except for what is transmitted from al-Dūrī ʿan Abī ʿAmr, who inclined al-nās where it stands in the genitive. The ground of the imālah is the kasrah of the case ending, which makes it not merely permissible but good. Indeed the Arabs inclined al-nās even where analogy did not require it, simply because the word is so common in their speech; and where there is no kasrah at all the imālah was still allowed, so it is the more fitting where the kasrah that draws it is actually present. Further: although this alif is the alif of fuʿāl, it was likened to the alif of fāʿil — the diminutive turns it into a wāw, nuwaysun, even though the base form is unāsan — and once it was so likened, imālah was permitted in it as it is in fāʿil.