Al-quwwa al-shahwiyya

القوة الشهويةal-quwwa al-shahwiyya

Preferred translation: appetitive faculty
Also rendered contextually as: appetite
Grammatical variants: appetitive
Technical sense: the faculty that moves toward what is imagined as useful, in pursuit of pleasure

General Technical Meaning

The appetitive faculty initiates motion toward things imagined as necessary or useful, in pursuit of pleasure.

In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works

In the reviewed ethical psychology, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī distinguishes the appetitive power by its attraction toward fitting good and benefit. The term names the faculty itself; ordinary appetite is not in every context the faculty.

Source: Nihāyat al-Ḥikmah

Read in context

Open a passage in the edition where this term is linked.

On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Three — Effects Issuing from the Human Being by Will Differ in Strength and Weakness · passage 4
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Seven — That Between Acts and Faculties There Is a Connection · passage 5
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Ten: On that to which the people of felicity ultimately come. · passage 9
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Ten: On that to which the people of felicity ultimately come. · passage 10
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Ten: On that to which the people of felicity ultimately come. · passage 11
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Eleven — On the States of the Consummate Wretched · passage 1
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Eleven — On the States of the Consummate Wretched · passage 2
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Eleven — On the States of the Consummate Wretched · passage 3
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Twelve — On the State of the Intermediate Common Folk · passage 2
On Dreams and Prophecies · Chapter Fifteen — On Prophethood and Messengership and What Follows Them of Revelation, Inspiration, the Veridical Dream, the Miracle, the Preternatural, and the Charism · passage 3

Canonical address: /glossary/al-quwwa-al-shahwiyya/