Root · 102 in the Quran · 84 in 16 texts of the library
أذنTwo converging senses per Ibn Fāris: the physical ear and knowledge — the second arising … (root dhn)
الهمزة والذال والنون أصلان متقاربان في المعنى متباعدان في اللفظ أحدهما أذن كل ذي أذن والآخر العلم وعنهما يتفرع الباب …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of أ ذ ن that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
31 words5 verbs7 verbal nouns4 participles2 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives7 other nouns2 plurals2 relatives and abstracts
- إِذْنpermission
- أَذِنَhe gave ear or listened to it, or him
- أُذُنear
- اسْتَْذَنَhe asked, or demanded, permission, or leave, to enter, or to come into the …
- ءَاذَانplural of ear
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5أَذِنَ · اسْتَْذَنَ · أَذَّنَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Form I vowels: فَعِلَ يَفْعَلُ (i – a; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- أَذِنَhe gave ear or listened to it, or himLaneForm IQurʾān ×23library ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- اسْتَْذَنَhe asked, or demanded, permission, or leave, to enter, or to come into the …LaneForm XQurʾān ×12library ×3Lane
- أَذَّنَhe wrung, or twisted, his earLaneForm IIQurʾān ×3library ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- ءَاذَنَForm IVQurʾān ×2Lane
- تَأَذَّنَLane: see Form IVForm VQurʾān ×2LaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns7إِذْن · أَذَان · أَذَن
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles4مُؤَذِّن · مُؤْذَن · مُؤْذِن
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Place, time and instrument2مَأْذَنَة · مِئْذَنَة
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2أَذِين · أَذُون
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns7أُذُن · آذَن · آذِن
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- أُذُنearautonounQurʾān ×18library ×11LaneIbn Fāris
- آذَنnounLaneIbn Fāris
- آذِنnounLaneIbn Fāris
- أُذْنnounLaneIbn Fāris
Plurals2ءَاذَان · آذَان
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- ءَاذَانplural of earfrom the singularbroken plural of أُذُنQurʾān ×12
- آذَانplural of earfrom the singularbroken plural of أُذُنlibrary ×2LaneIbn Fāris
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 17 patterns does
What each pattern does. The pattern gives a tendency, not a rule: many words have drifted into meanings of their own.
The pattern machinePour the root into a pattern; see whether the word exists
Choose a pattern; the root's letters pour into it. Then see whether the word exists in our sources. The machine makes shapes; only usage makes words.
- Attested: مَأْذَنَة, noun of place (with -a) (Lane)
Place noun with -a. The place noun with the feminine -a. Sometimes it is only a variant of mafʿal; often it names the place where a thing is found in abundance (maʾsada, 'a place full of lions'). So maktab is the place of writing, and maktaba, where writings are gathered: a library, a bookshop. Our summary AI
But: maktaba is not in our classical dictionaries for k-t-b: Lane and al-Jawharī give maktab ('a school'), none gives maktaba. Its sense of 'library, bookshop' fits the pattern of abundance, but that is our reading of the pattern, not a classical entry. Many mafʿala words are single items of usage (maqbara 'cemetery'), which the grammarians call heard, not formed by rule.
The grammarians on this pattern (4)
ما يكون مفعلة لازمة لها الهاء والفتحة … وذلك إذا أردت أن تكثر الشيء بالمكان، وذلك قولك: أرض مسبعة، ومأسدة
Chapter on what is mafʿala, with the -a and the a-vowel always: that is when you mean that a thing abounds in a place, as you say 'a land of many beasts of prey (masbaʿa), of many lions (maʾsada)' AI
Sībawayh (d. c. 180/796), al-Kitāb, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, 3rd ed. (Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1988), 4:94 · OpenITI line 21027–21028 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
و نحو المظنة و المقبرة فتحا و ضما ليس بقياس
and words like maẓinna and maqbara (with a or u) are not by rule AI
Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), al-Shāfiya fī ʿilm al-taṣrīf, ed. Ḥasan Aḥmad al-ʿUthmān (Mecca: al-Maktaba al-Makkiyya, 1995), 1:30 · OpenITI line 223 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- “designate the place where the object signified by the noun from which they are formed, is found in large numbers or quantities” Wright, Grammar I, §247, p. 148 ↗ · on nouns of abundance, maf'ala · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
- “Nouns of time and place not unfrequently take the feminine form” Wright, Grammar I, §225, p. 128 ↗ · on maf'ala as a variant of maf'al · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
This root has a weak or doubled letter, so real words change shape (qāla → qāʾil, not qāwil); the machine pours the letters in as they are, and matches attested words by their regular pattern.
About thisWhat “attested” means here; the sources
Attested means found in our data: the Quranic Arabic Corpus (lemmas, verb Forms, participles, verbal nouns, plurals), the library's words (automatic analysis), Lane's Lexicon (his headwords, the Forms he numbers, the verbal nouns and plurals he names) and Ibn Fāris's entry. Nothing is generated for this list. Meanings are Lane's first gloss in his entry, or else the analyser's gloss (“auto”). Vowelling follows the corpus, then Lane, then the analyser; verbs are given in the regular perfect. Lane's Lexicon thins out after qāf, and a few of his entries cover several roots at once: those roots show no Lane. The patterns, written with ف ع ل, are computed by us.
The dictionaries
English: AI translation AIal-Khalīl · 170It is said of a man: 'he is udhun (أذن)';
al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn. The first Arabic dictionary, arranged by permutations of the root letters.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Jawharī · 393'Adhina lahu (أذن له)' fī l-shayʾ, [verbal noun] idhnan, [means 'he gave him permission'].
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Hamza, dhāl, and nūn (الهمزة والذال والنون) form two roots that are close in meaning but distant in pronunciation: one is 'udhun (أذن) 'ear' — [the ear] of every creature possessing an ear — and the other is 'ilm (علم) '
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-udhun: the organ [the ear];
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711'Adhina bi-l-shayʾ (أذن بالشيء)' — idhnan, adhanan, adhānatan — means 'he knew.' In the noble revelation: 'then be informed (fa-adhanū) of a war from God and His Messenger' — i.e.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLane · 1876English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
E. W. Lane (d. 1876), An Arabic-English Lexicon. English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
Lane, Arabic-English Lexiconread Lane's entry online ↗
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
أ ذ ن
الهمزة والذال والنون أصلان متقاربان في المعنى متباعدان في اللفظ أحدهما أذن كل ذي أذن والآخر العلم وعنهما يتفرع الباب كله
ʾ-dh-n: two roots close in meaning but distant in form; one of them is the ear of every creature possessing an ear, and the other is knowledge; and from both the whole chapter branches out. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×102
an entry in Ibn Fārislater sources onlyin none of them
Do these six share one core meaning?
Reference
About thisal-Khalīl, Ibn Jinnī, Ibn Fāris; the counts across the dictionary
al-Khalīl (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn, as transmitted by al-Layth: a two-letter word “turns in two ways”, a three-letter word “in six ways” (masdūsa), four letters in 24, five in 120; “its used forms are written down and its unused ones dropped” (line 975 ↗). The dictionary is built on this: each chapter takes a set of letters and names which orders are used (mustaʿmal) and which unused (muhmal). The ring shows that verdict, from the chapter heading as edited (documented in the text; how much of the book is al-Khalīl's own is disputed).
A reported total. al-Suyūṭī transmits, from Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, that al-Khalīl put the possible forms, used and unused, of two to five letters at 12,305,412 (al-Muzhir, line 1347 ↗). It is reported, not found in the ʿAyn. It equals exactly the arrangements of 2 to 5 different letters out of 28 (756 + 19,656 + 491,400 + 11,793,600); the breakdown printed beside it is corrupt, and al-Zubaydī's count, given next, differs (6,659,400).
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, names the greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar): bind a three-letter root and its six orders to one meaning, and bring stray members back “by the subtlety of the craft and interpretation” (line 7536 ↗). He says himself that it does not hold for every root (line 167 ↗; line 7603 ↗).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) gives each root its own aṣl and treats a rearranged word as maqlūb, “turned round”, and so not a root of its own: “j-b-dh is not a root, because it is a single word, turned round” (Maqāyīs, line 6147 ↗). The ring sets his aṣl for each order side by side; whether they meet is the question.
Neighbours on the ring differ by one swap of two letters.
The critique. A source quoted by al-Suyūṭī calls the greater derivation Ibn Jinnī's innovation, “not relied on in the language” (al-Muzhir, line 6159 ↗).
The other axis. The root's letters also go into patterns that keep their order and change the frame: the patterns (awzān) and the verb Forms I–X.
Across Ibn Fāris's dictionary. Of the 2,300 possible sets of three different sound letters (no hamza, w or y), 1,021 have at least one order as an entry. How many of their six orders are entries:
- 1 of 6319
- 2 of 6218
- 3 of 6164
- 4 of 6155
- 5 of 6107
- 6 of 658
- 1 of 6148
- 2 of 6108
- 3 of 6157
- 4 of 6179
- 5 of 6111
- 6 of 643
Of the orders al-Khalīl calls used, 2,097 are entries in Ibn Fāris and 267 are not; 17 that he calls unused are entries in Ibn Fāris.
Attested here means found in our digital texts (Ibn Fāris, Lisān al-ʿArab, Lane, the Quranic Arabic Corpus), with w and y kept apart and hamza spellings merged; it is our data, not a classical verdict. English beside the Arabic is AI translation. Sources and grades: docs/research/root-permutations.md.
Letters & sound
- أhamzadeep in the throat · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- ذdhāltongue-tip, edges of the teeth · voiced, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- نnūntip of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
How each letter is made, in brief, from Sībawayh's and Ibn Jinnī's own sentences (linked); their words are under Reference.
Sharing two of its three letters (computed; kinship of form, not of meaning)
Reference
How it is madeSībawayh and Ibn Jinnī · phonetics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
فأقصاها مخرجا: الهمزة والهاء والألف
The furthest of them [the three in the throat] in place: the hamza, the hāʾ and the alif. Sībawayh, line 26548 ↗
فأولها من أسفله وأقصاه، مخرج الهمزة والألف والهاء، هكذا يقول سيبويه
The first of them [in the throat], from its lowest and furthest part, is the place of the hamza, the alif and the hāʾ: so Sībawayh says. Ibn Jinnī, line 965 ↗
ذ
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأطراف الثنايا مخرج الظاء والذال، والثاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the edges of the front teeth is the place of the ẓāʾ, the dhāl and the thāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26561 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأطراف الثنايا، مخرج الظاء والذال والثاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the edges of the front teeth is the place of the ẓāʾ, the dhāl and the thāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 984 ↗
ن
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان ما بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى وما فويق الثنايا مخرج النون
From the edge of the tongue, from its nearest part to the end of its tip, between it and the upper palate next to it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Sībawayh, lines 26555–26556 ↗
ومن طرف اللسان بينه وبين ما فويق الثنايا، مخرج النون
From the tip of the tongue, between it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Ibn Jinnī, line 979 ↗
Sībawayh, al-Kitāb (ed. Hārūn) and Ibn Jinnī, Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb; OpenITI digital texts (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Full credits on each letter's page.
In the Breath of the All-MercifulIbn ʿArabī · metaphysics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
Nature (ch. 2)
وإلا الهاء والهمزة فإنهما باردتان رطبتان
And except hāʾ and hamza, for these two are cold and moist.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2583ذ
Level of existence: الحيوان · animals
Divine Name: المذل · the Abaser (al-Mudhill)
Lunar mansion: سعد السعود · Saʿd al-Suʿūd
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65776Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
المرتبة العشرية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The tenfold rank: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2582ن
Level of existence: السماء الرابعة · the fourth heaven
Divine Name: النور · the Light (al-Nūr)
Lunar mansion: السماك · al-Simāk
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64663Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 8 line 2571 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
الثمانية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The eightfold [rank]: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2580Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
أ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الأشياء قلت أو كثرت، وتكون الإشارة في بعض الأحيان من المتكلم إلى ذاته ونفسه، وهذه الإشارة سالمة من القبض.
It is an indication of all things, whether few or many. At times the indication is from the speaker to his own essence and self, and this indication is free of contraction (qabḍ).
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب القليل.
It is an indication of the near, small thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب المناسب.
It is an indication of the near, fitting (congruent) thing.
ذ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى ما في تعظيم ذلك الشيء الذي ملكته الذات.
It is an indication of what lies in the magnifying of that thing which the self has come to possess.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للشيء الخشن في ذاته أو العظيم أو القبيح.
It is a name for the thing that is rough in itself, or great, or ugly.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم للشيء القبيح الذي لا يعقبه في نفسه غضب.
It is a name for the ugly thing that is not followed, in itself, by anger.
ن
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الخير الساكن في الذات الشاعل فيها.
It is the good that dwells in the self, kindling [al-shāʿil, as written] within it.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخير الكامل أو النور الساطع.
It is an indication of perfect good or radiant light.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى شيء يدركه المتكلم أو هو له.
It is an indication of something that the speaker perceives or that belongs to him.
In the sister scriptsHebrew א ז נSyriac ܐ ܕ ܢ
| Arabic | أ ذ ن |
| Hebrew | א ז נ |
| Syriac | ܐ ܕ ܢ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩱 𐩹 𐩬 |
| Phoenician | 𐤀 𐤆 𐤍 |
Letter for letter, by the regular sound correspondences of the Semitic languages (Arabic keeps several sounds the others merged). This shows how the root would be spelled; whether a related word exists is a separate question, answered in the Semitic lens. Where an Arabic sibilant (s, sh) continues two older sounds, both spellings are shown.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconAl-Khalīl anchors udhun in the organ of hearing, extends it metaphorically to any loop-handle (ʿurwat al-kūz), and to a person who 'listens to everyone' (huwa udhun);well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl anchors udhun in the organ of hearing, extends it metaphorically to any loop-handle (ʿurwat al-kūz), and to a person who 'listens to everyone' (huwa udhun); he also gives adhdhana/adhān as proclamation. Al-Jawharī moves to the legal-social sense: adhina lahu fī l-shayʾ = gave permission; adhina bi- = came to know, citing Q2:279 (fa-adhinū bi-ḥarbin); adhina = listened attentively (with the verses of Qaʿnab ibn Umm Ṣāḥib on the deaf-to-good, quick-to-evil). Ibn Fāris (Maqāyīs) states the two roots — ear, and knowledge — are formally distant but semantically converge, since by the ear all heard knowledge is obtained, and the whole chapter branches from this pairing. Al-Rāghib develops the metaphor of udhun khayrin (Q9:61, one who listens for what benefits) and of adhinat li-rabbihā (Q84:2, the sky 'gave ear' to its Lord), and treats adhina bi- as knowledge specifically mediated by hearing. Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān) consolidates: adhina bi = 'ilm (knew), āadhana/ādhana = informed, adhina lahu = permitted, and adhān as the technical term for the proclamation (announcement) — parallel in form to taʿdhīb/ʿadhāb. Lane confirms adhina lahu, aor. yaʾdhanu, inf. adhan, as 'gave ear, listened,' citing the ḥadīth on listening to Qurʾānic chant.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, s.v. أذن
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. أذن
- Lane's Lexicon, s.v. أذن
Letters & soundOf the three radicals only ذ and ن carry entries in the given correspondences;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Of the three radicals only ذ and ن carry entries in the given correspondences; أ has none recorded. Al-Dabbāgh glosses ذ (with fatḥa) as an indication of magnifying what the self has come to possess, and ن as the good that dwells in the self, 'kindled' within it — together suggestive, if one is inclined to read sound-symbolically, of hearing as an inward acquisition that kindles knowledge in the self, which loosely echoes Ibn Fāris's ear→knowledge convergence. Al-Dabbāgh's cosmological correspondences (ذ → animals/living creatures, ن → the fourth heaven) add little semantic traction for this particular root. This is explicitly speculative; mainstream historical linguistics treats such letter-symbolism as at most suggestive, not evidentiary.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
Root structureIbn Fāris lists no chapter-siblings for this nucleus in the data given, so the ʾ-dh pairing cannot be situated among neighboring two-letter chapters here.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris lists no chapter-siblings for this nucleus in the data given, so the ʾ-dh pairing cannot be situated among neighboring two-letter chapters here. Among the six permutations of أ-ذ-ن, only أذن itself is richly attested and glossed (ear/knowledge, per Maqāyīs); ذأن is marked as formally attested but carries no preserved gloss, while أنذ, ذنأ, نأذ, نذأ are unattested. This leaves very little material for Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation (al-tasarruf al-akbar) to work with — any claim that the permuted orders share a common semantic residue with أذن would be pure conjecture here, not something the sources support.
Draws on: maqayis-nucleus · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsʾ-dh-n is an old, widely shared Semitic word for 'ear': Hebrew ʾōzen, Aramaic/Syriac ʾednā (or ʾudhnā), Akkadian uznu, Geʿez ʾezn.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
ʾ-dh-n is an old, widely shared Semitic word for 'ear': Hebrew ʾōzen, Aramaic/Syriac ʾednā (or ʾudhnā), Akkadian uznu, Geʿez ʾezn. Akkadian uznu shows the same semantic extension found in Arabic, from 'ear' to 'understanding, wisdom' — a close typological parallel to the Arabic ear→knowledge development traced above. Given this depth and breadth of cognates, Arabic أذن is a native inherited root, not a loanword.
Draws on: comparative-semitics
- Brown–Driver–Briggs, s.v. אֹזֶן
- CAL, s.v. ʾdn (N) ↗
Quranic exegesisAt Q9:61, where opponents mock the Prophet as udhun ('an ear,' i.e.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q9:61, where opponents mock the Prophet as udhun ('an ear,' i.e. credulous, believing everything he hears), the exegetes read the Qurʾān's reply (udhun khayrin lakum) as reversing the insult: he listens, but discerningly, to what benefits the believers — al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī both stress this turn from taunt to praise. At Q84:2 (wa-adhinat li-rabbihā wa-ḥuqqat), al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāghib take adhinat as 'obeyed/gave ear,' the sky's submission being a form of hearing-and-complying, not mere physical audition. At Q2:279 (fa-ʾdhanū bi-ḥarbin min Allāhi wa-rasūlihi), the commentators read adhinū as 'know with certainty, be apprised' — the usurer is put on notice, the verb carrying the force of a formal proclamation of war, close to the adhān sense. The istiʾdhān verses (e.g. Q24) concerning entering houses are read by al-Rāzī and al-Zamakhsharī as establishing a legal-ethical protocol of permission tied to the sanctity of private space, extending the 'permission' sense of idhn from the individual audience (as in 4:119, where Satan is only given leave, not compulsion) to social law.
Draws on: quran-occurrences
- al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, ad Q84:2
- al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, ad Q9:61
- al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, ad Q2:279
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses idhn (permission) in the image of the sealed treasuries of the Real: so long as the King's seal is upon them, none may dare open them save bi-idhnihi (by His leave), which is why He appointed Ādam as khalīfa to keep watch over the kingdom — the vicegerent's authority is precisely a delegated idhn.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses idhn (permission) in the image of the sealed treasuries of the Real: so long as the King's seal is upon them, none may dare open them save bi-idhnihi (by His leave), which is why He appointed Ādam as khalīfa to keep watch over the kingdom — the vicegerent's authority is precisely a delegated idhn. Elsewhere, glossing the ḥadīth 'I was his hearing (samʿ) and his sight (baṣar),' Ibn ʿArabī points out that the Prophet did not say 'I was his eye (ʿayn) and his ear (udhun)' — he deliberately distinguishes the Names manifesting as faculties (samʿ, baṣar) from the bodily organs themselves (ʿayn, udhun), separating the two forms (ṣūratayn). The udhun as organ is thus, for him, the created instrument through which the divine attribute of hearing operates, but is not to be identified with that attribute.
Draws on: fassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
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