Technical vocabulary across the editions

Glossary

Definitions from the intellectual tradition, with author-specific senses and evidence where the editions establish them.

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A

عدمʿadamnon-existencePrivation/non-existence is the absence of what is of a kind to exist.Author sense أضغاث الأحلامaḍghāth al-aḥlāmconfused dreamsAḍghāth al-aḥlām are confused dream-images arising through imagination from psychic or demonic promptings; in this technical taxonomy they are not interpreted.Author sense عالم العقلʿālam al-ʿaqlworld of intellectThe world of intellect is the realm of beginnings and primary exemplars.Author sense عالم المثالʿālam al-mithālimaginal worldʿĀlam al-mithāl is an intermediate, spiritual and luminous realm of measurable forms: it resembles bodily substances in being perceptible and measurable and immaterial intellects in being luminous, while being neither a material body nor a pure intellect.Author sense عقلʿaqlintellectʿAql can designate the human theoretical faculty that receives universal quiddities or a separate active intellect wholly immaterial in itself.Author sense العقل المجرّدal-ʿaql al-mujarradimmaterial intellectAn immaterial intellect is an unchanging, noble substance that is neither a body nor impressed in a body.

B

باطلbāṭilfalsehoodBāṭil can mark what is invalid at its root or, in an ontological register, what is nonexistent.Author sense باطنbāṭininwardBāṭin is the inward: what stands to an outward (ẓāhir) as its hidden and intended reality, not a region spatially inside it. In the philosophical lexicon the pair also names the inner and outer faculties of perception; in this treatise the inward is a level of reality — the higher world is the inward of the lower — and the domain the soul enters as it ascends.Author sense باطنbāṭininner senseThe bāṭin is the concealed purpose intended by the ẓāhir. In Ibn Rushd’s formulation, the ẓāhir consists of representative images set forth for those without access to demonstration, while the bāṭin is the meanings disclosed to people of demonstration.Author sense بالذات وبالعرضbi-l-dhāt wa-bi-l-ʿaraḍessentially / accidentallyBi-l-dhāt marks what belongs essentially or in virtue of a thing itself; its controlled contrast is bi-l-ʿaraḍ, accidentally or derivatively.Author sense برهانburhāndemonstrationA demonstration is a syllogism composed of certain premises, whether immediately necessary or theoretically established.Author sense

F

فناءfanāʾpassing awayIn mystical terminology, fanāʾ is the passing away of blameworthy attributes or a loss of awareness of the visible and unseen realms through absorption in divine greatness and witnessing the Real.Author sense فكرfikrdiscursive thoughtFikr is discursive thought: the ordering of matters already known so as to arrive at what is not yet known. Classical definitions describe it as a movement of the mind toward the principles of what is sought and back again to the thing sought, and contrast it with intuition, in which that transition is immediate.Author sense فطرةfiṭrainnate natureFiṭra is the natural constitution disposed to receive religion.Author sense

G

غايةghāyaendA ghāya is an end or final cause: that for whose sake a process or action occurs and toward which it is ordered.Author sense

H

حدḥadddefinitionIn logic, ḥadd can mean a definition composed of essential constituents; a complete ḥadd consists of the proximate genus and proximate differentia. It can also mean a term of a proposition or syllogism, such as subject and predicate or the minor, major, and middle terms.Author sense حدسḥadsintuitionIn logic and philosophical psychology, ḥads is the mind’s immediate, self-derived grasp of a syllogism’s middle term, enabling rapid passage from principles to the sought conclusion without the gradual movement of discursive thought.Author sense حافظةḥāfiẓaretentive facultyIn faculty psychology, the ḥāfiẓa is the retentive or memory faculty: the repository of estimation, preserving its apprehended contents and enabling their later recall.Author sense حالḥālstateA state is a non-settled quality that does not last long, contrasted with a settled disposition.Author sense حقيقةḥaqīqarealityḤaqīqa is a thing's firmly established reality; in linguistic analysis it also marks literal usage as opposed to metaphor.Author sense حقḥaqqtruthTruth is what accords with reality or is not open to nullification; al-Ḥaqq may also designate the ultimate necessary reality.Author sense الحركة الجوهريةal-ḥaraka al-jawhariyyasubstantial motionSubstantial motion is gradual passage from potentiality to actuality in the category of substance itself. Bodily substances are therefore intrinsically in continuous flux and renewal, rather than undergoing change only in accidents.Author sense حكايةḥikāyarepresentationIn this dream-representational usage, ḥikāya is representation: presenting a likeness of something without claiming identity with the thing represented.Author sense

I

إذعانidhʿānacceptanceIdhʿān is acceptance that a predicate does or does not obtain of a subject. When cognition includes idhʿān to that affirmative or negative relation, it is taṣdīq rather than mere taṣawwur.Author sense إدراكidrākapprehensionIdrāk is the taking or presence of the perceived object’s form in the perceiver. In the account attributed to Ibn Rushd, its four kinds are sensation, imagination, estimation, and intellection. Considered by the presence or absence of judgment, cognition divides into conception and assent.Author sense الاجتماع المدنيal-ijtimāʿ al-madanīcivic associationCivic association is the association of city-dwellers through which they pursue felicity, each according to natural preparedness.Author sense الاجتماع المنزليal-ijtimāʿ al-manzilīdomestic associationAuthor sense إلهامilhāminspirationIlhām is knowledge cast into the heart by effusion, prompting action without inference from a sign or examination of an argument.Author sense علمʿilmknowledgeKnowledge is the cognitive possession or presence of what is known to the knower; technical classifications vary by context.Author sense العلم الإلهيal-ʿilm al-ilāhīmetaphysicsAl-ʿilm al-ilāhī (‘Divine Science’), also called al-ʿilm al-aʿlā (‘Highest Science’), is first philosophy or metaphysics: the discipline concerned with being as such and the first principles on which particular sciences depend.Author sense إمامةimāmaimamateImāma is the office of authoritative leadership after the Prophet, classically described in kalām as a general leadership safeguarding religious and worldly order.Author sense إرادةirādavolitionVolition is the power by which one thing, rather than another, is intended.Author sense عصمةʿiṣmainfallibilityʿIṣma is a settled disposition (malaka) of avoiding sins while being able to commit them.Author sense استعدادistiʿdādpreparednessIstiʿdād is a recipient’s preparedness or capacity for a possible perfection: a dispositional quality ordered toward development or reception.Author sense اعتبارiʿtibārpositingIʿtibār is consideration of a thing under a particular aspect. In a metaphysical register, iʿtibārī marks what exists only in and through the considering intellect.Author sense اعتدالiʿtidālequilibriumIʿtidāl is an equilibrium opposed to both excess and deficiency. In ethical psychology it is expressed through the mean states of the faculties; in philosophical medicine, iʿtidāl al-mizāj is balance among the four humoral constituents of bodily temperament.Author sense اعتيادiʿtiyādhabituationHabituation is repeated performance of the same act over a long period through which a character is acquired or changed.Author sense

J

جنسjinsgenusIn logic, a genus is a universal predicated, in answer to ‘What is it?’, of many things that differ in specific reality. It is their shared essential part and remains indeterminate until a differentia determines it.Author sense

K

كمالkamālperfectionPerfection is either primary, through which a species becomes that species in actuality, or secondary, consisting in the acts and passive states that follow from that species.Author sense كرامةkarāmacharismatic graceA karāma is the manifestation of an extraordinary act by a person unaccompanied by a claim of prophethood; joined to a claim of prophethood the act is a miracle, and without faith and righteous action it is istidrāj.Author sense كشفkashfunveilingIn mystical terminology, kashf is disclosure or unveiling: the removal of a veil through which hidden or unseen meanings become manifest.Author sense خارق العادةkhāriq al-ʿādaextraordinary actA khāriq al-ʿāda is something that departs from the customary order; extraordinary character alone does not necessarily prove prophethood.Author sense خيالkhayālimaginationImagination is the internal faculty retaining sensible forms after sensation and making them available to further operations.Author sense كهانةkihānasoothsayingKihāna is a divinatory capacity claimed to disclose unseen matters through a special psychic and celestial causal configuration.Author sense

L

اللذة والألمal-ladhdha wa-l-alampleasure and painPleasure and pain are paired psychic qualities: pleasure is apprehension of what is congenial as congenial, and pain apprehension of what is contrary as contrary. Both are classified by the apprehending faculty into sensory, imaginal, estimative, and intellectual forms.Author sense

M

معادmaʿādreturnIn kalām, maʿād is the resurrection or return, classically distinguished into bodily and spiritual forms.Author sense مبدأmabdaʾoriginA mabdaʾ is a principle whose own existence is complete and from which the existence of another thing proceeds and is constituted.Author sense مفهومmafhūmconceptA mafhūm is what is understood from an utterance: the concept grasped from its wording. The same mental content is called taṣawwur insofar as it is a mental form, and mafhūm is standardly contrasted with miṣdāq.Author sense ماهيةmāhiyyaquiddityQuiddity is a thing's intelligible whatness considered apart from external existence and stated in answer to ‘What is it?’Author sense الملائكة المقربونal-malāʾika al-muqarrabūnnear angelsAuthor sense ملكةmalakasettled dispositionA malaka is a firmly rooted psychic quality established through repeated practice. Its corresponding act or affection issues from it without deliberation.Author sense معرفةmaʿrifaCognizanceMaʿrifa names cognizance or recognizing cognition, distinguished in the cited al-Aʿrāf 7:143 passage from ʿilm as knowledge.Author sense معرفت‌النفسmaʿrifat al-nafsself-knowledgeMaʿrifat al-nafs is a person's knowledge of the human soul as that person's own self; a held philosophical account distinguishes it from inferential knowledge of another soul.مصداقmiṣdāqreferentThe miṣdāq is that in which a concept holds true — the instance or referent that verifies the mafhūm, standing in standard opposition to the mafhūm.Author sense مزاجmizājtemperamentA temperament is a uniform quality produced by interacting contrary elements whose qualities temper one another.Author sense المجرداتal-mujarradātimmaterial entitiesImmaterial beings are entities free from matter and its material concomitants. One held philosophical classification distinguishes beings immaterial in both essence and operation, such as intellects, from souls that are immaterial in essence but operate through bodies.Author sense معجزةmuʿjizamiracleA muʿjiza is an extraordinary act joined to a claim of prophethood and intended to manifest the truthfulness of the claimant.Author sense مشاهدةmushāhadawitnessingIn mystical terminology, mushāhada is witnessing or direct presence after the removal of a veil, distinguished from merely discursive or reported knowledge.Author sense

N

نفسnafssoulSoul is the principle or first perfection of a living natural body; technical accounts distinguish its powers and grades.Author sense نفس الأمرnafs al-amrfact of the matterNafs al-amr is the objective standing of a thing apart from any positer’s supposition or consideration. In truth-bearing use, a judgment is true when it corresponds to that reality.Author sense نوعnawʿspeciesIn logic, nawʿ has two related senses. A real species is a universal predicated in answer to ‘What is it?’ of one or more individuals agreeing in reality; it may therefore be confined to a single individual. A relative species is a quiddity placed under a genus and considered in relation to what stands above it.Author sense

Q

قوةquwwafacultyA quwwa may be a faculty or active principle responsible for motion, change, or action, or a potentiality for acquiring a form or state.Author sense القوة الغضبيةal-quwwa al-ghaḍabiyyairascible facultyThe irascible faculty initiates motion that repels what is imagined as harmful or corrupting, in pursuit of mastery.Author sense القوة النطقيةal-quwwa al-nuṭqiyyarational facultyThe rational faculty is that by which a human acquires sciences and arts, distinguishes noble from base actions and traits, deliberates about what should or should not be done, and apprehends what is beneficial, harmful, pleasant, or painful.Author sense القوة الشهويةal-quwwa al-shahwiyyaappetitive facultyThe appetitive faculty initiates motion toward things imagined as necessary or useful, in pursuit of pleasure.Author sense

R

رويّةrawiyyadeliberationRawiyya is deliberation that can precede a choice made with discernment. In one logical account, it names one’s self-directed acquisition of premises for assent. A settled character is classically distinguished by actions issuing without prior rawiyya.Author sense رياضةriyāḍaspiritual disciplineIn ethical and mystical usage, riyāḍa is disciplined training of the soul that purifies character from entrenched natural tendencies.Author sense رسوخrusūkhrootednessRusūkh is firmness and secure establishment; in knowledge, it is verified mastery not displaced by doubt.Author sense رؤياruʾyādream visionRuʾyā denotes what is seen in sleep. Technical discussions distinguish true or interpretable dream visions from confused dreams and classify their relation to representation and interpretation.Author sense

S

سعادةsaʿādafelicitySaʿāda is the good sought for its own sake and not as a means to anything greater.Author sense شقاوةshaqāwawretchednessShaqāwa is the contrary of saʿāda (felicity).Author sense شريعةsharīʿasacred lawSharīʿa is the path in religion, understood as obedient commitment to servitude.Author sense سحرsiḥrsorceryIn this technical classification, siḥr is a human soul's effect upon the elemental world without celestial assistance, distinguished from talismanic operation with such assistance.Author sense الصورة العلميةal-ṣūra al-ʿilmiyyacognitive formA cognitive form is a thing’s mental form, contrasted in the held account with the sensible form—an external thing’s shape and colour as apprehended through the senses. The plural ‘cognitive forms’ can also refer to divine cognitive forms identified with the Platonic luminous Forms.Author sense

T

طبيعةṭabīʿanatureNature is the intrinsic primary principle of a thing's motion and rest and, more generally, of its intrinsic change and stability.Author sense تعبيرtaʿbīrdream interpretationDream interpretation traces a dream-image back through analogical representation to the content witnessed by the soul.Author sense تفسيرtafsīrexegesisTafsīr is the exposition of a Qurʾānic verse — its meaning, its circumstance, its story, and the occasion of its revelation — in wording that indicates that sense manifestly; the word itself originally means uncovering and making manifest.Author sense تجردtajarrudimmaterialityTajarrud is immateriality: the condition of being free from matter and its material concomitants. In the philosophers’ formal delimitation, a mujarrad is neither a substratum for a substance, nor inhering in another substance, nor composed of the two.Author sense تكوينtakwīnTakwīnTakwīn is the bringing of something into existence. In kalām it is the bringing of the non-existent out of non-existence into existence; in falsafa it is the bringing-to-be of what is preceded by matter, described by Ibn Rushd as the mukawwin's act of composing the mutakawwin. In cosmological usage it may also name the realm of existence. In later uṣūlī and metaphysical compounds, takwīnī qualifies will and command: takwīnī will is contrasted with tashrīʿī will, while takwīnī command is applied to immaterial existents and to kun.Author sense تمامtamāmcompletenessTamām is completion: a thing's reaching the point at which it is all there. The lexicon also records a wider use in which what a thing exists for is called its tamām; the criterion Ṭabāṭabāʾī uses is the first — completion by the part that makes a thing what it is.Author sense تصورtaṣawwurconceptionIn logic and philosophy, taṣawwur has a broad and a restricted use. Broadly, it is unrestricted mental presence and is coextensive with knowledge, which itself divides into taṣawwur and taṣdīq. Restrictedly, simple taṣawwur is apprehension without assent to an affirmative or negative relation.Author sense تصديقtaṣdīqassentAssent is cognition involving affirmative or negative judgment concerning a relation.Author sense تشخصtashakhkhuṣindividuationTashakhkhuṣ is individuation: that by which a thing is distinguished from others so that nothing else shares in it.Author sense تشكيكtashkīkgradationWithin gradational predication, tashkīk is the non-uniform application of one concept to its instances: some possess priority, precedence, greater entitlement, or greater intensity than others.Author sense تشريعtashrīʿTashrīʿTashrīʿ is God’s instituting of rulings for His servants: to institute (sharaʿa) a thing is to make it a path and a way. What is so instituted is the sharʿ — the sharīʿa, the path in religion, the following of which orders this life and the next. In the uṣūlīs’ usage tashrīʿī, “legislative”, is set against takwīnī — said of the will and of instituting (jaʿl).Author sense تسخير الأرواحtaskhīr al-arwāḥsubjugation of spiritsAuthor sense تطبيقtaṭbīqTaṭbīqTaṭbīq is the act of bringing one thing into conformity with another — the act-noun of the muṭābaqa (correspondence) root.Author sense توجّه النفسtawajjuh al-nafssoul's directednessIn the attested usage, tawajjuh al-nafs is the soul’s directed attention through which mental apprehension occurs without spatial movement. Withdrawal of the soul’s attention from forms present in its faculties is dhuhūl.Author sense تواترtawāturrecurrent transmissionTawātur is recurrent transmission about a possible sensible matter by a plurality of witnesses whose collusion on a lie is not reasonably conceivable, yielding certainty. No fixed number of transmitters defines it. It is verbal when the wording recurs and maʿnawī when different reports share a common meaning.Author sense تأويلtaʾwīltaʾwīlTaʾwīl is turning an expression away from its apparent sense to another sense it can bear — classically, from the literal signification to a figurative one — where the reading adopted accords with the Book and the Sunna; the word originally means reverting.Author sense تأويلtaʾwīlTaʾwīl of a dreamThe outcome or realization in waking life to which a dream vision points.Author sense

U

الأمور الاعتباريةal-umūr al-iʿtibāriyyaposited mattersIʿtibārī matters are concepts or statuses whose standing depends on a considerer’s positing or abstraction rather than on an independently instantiated external counterpart. They may nevertheless have an external basis from which they are abstracted.Author sense

W

وهمwahmestimationWahm can name the estimative faculty that apprehends particular nonsensible meanings attached to sensible individuals. In an epistemic register, wahm can also mean an outweighed belief or judgment.Author sense وحيwaḥyrevelationWaḥy is hidden or rapid communication conveyed by speech, writing, message, or sign.Author sense واجب الوجودwājib al-wujūdNecessary ExistentThe Necessary Existent exists through itself and depends on nothing whatsoever.Author sense واجب بالذاتwājib bi-l-dhātnecessary-by-itselfNecessary in itself describes an existent whose existence belongs to it through itself, without condition or dependence on another.Author sense واجب بالغيرwājib bi-l-ghayrnecessary-by-anotherNecessary through another describes a possible existent whose necessity comes from the cause that brings it into existence.Author sense وجودwujūdexistenceExistence is a primary intelligible grasped without definition and opposed to non-existence; its divisions and modes require contextual specification.Author sense

Z

ظاهرẓāhirẓāhirThe ẓāhir of an utterance is the sense made manifest to a hearer by the wording itself, which nevertheless remains open to taʾwīl and to restriction.Author sense