A quwwa may be a faculty or active principle responsible for motion, change, or action, or a potentiality for acquiring a form or state.
In ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s Works
Faculty or active principle
In Bidāyat al-Ḥikmah, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī also uses quwwa for an active principle: psychic faculties are principles of effects such as seeing, hearing, and imagining. This sense remains distinct from quwwa as potentiality or receptivity.
Source: Bidāyat al-Ḥikmah
Potentiality
In Bidāyat al-Ḥikmah, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī uses quwwa for an external, gradable potentiality borne by matter for a temporal actuality. This is not the sense of an agent’s power or a psychic faculty.
Source: Bidāyat al-Ḥikmah
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