Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji'un - Commentary

Commentary

A brief (grammatical) dissection of the phrase, for understanding the words better (and not mixing them up or mispronouncing them):

Inna: Inna is really inna-na. The first part is “verily”, the last part is “we”–but Arabic tends to simplify, so it is written as inna (with only 1 noon and shadda for stress). It means “Indeed, we” or “verily, we”.

Li-llahi: Li is a harfu jarr (preposition) meaning “to” or “is for.” It is used as a kind of possessive case. “a laka akhun” (the la is really the same as li) means “is for you a brother?” or “do you have a brother?” So here, “lillahi” means “belong to Allah SWT ” or “are for Allah SWT”. (It’s also because of the 'li' that 'allah' takes kasra.)

Wa: Wa means “and”.

Inna: Same as above.

Ilay-hi: This is two parts, it means “toward him”. Ilay is actually a form of ila (a preposition), which means “to”. A grammatically similar phrase is “thahabtu ila masjidin” — "I went to a masjid". “Hi” is actually “hu“, the third-person possessive pronoun (”his”). (It takes kasra because of "ila".) So the overall translation is “toward him”.

Raji'oon: This is a form of raja3a, "return" (the 3 represents the letter 'ain, which is voiced with a tightened throat). Raji3 is a noun/adjective form, meaning 'a person who is returning'. The oon at the end makes it plural (so that it refers to 3 or more people). Rajioon basically means 'returners', or better 'returning ones'.

Taken together, the phrase can be translated as “We indeed belong to Allah, and we indeed toward him are returning.”