Root · 10 in the Quran · 72 in 14 texts of the library
أصلIbn Fāris treats أصل as three separate, mutually remote roots — the foundation/base of a … (root sl)
الهمزة والصاد واللام ثلاثة أصول متباعد بعضها من بعض أحدها أساس الشيء والثاني الحية والثالث ما كان من النهار بعد العشي …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of أ ص ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
29 words5 verbs6 verbal nouns2 participles1 intensive or elative9 other nouns4 plurals2 relatives and abstracts
- أَصْلthe lower, or lowest, part of a thing
- أَصِيلhaving root, or a foundation
- أُصُول—
- ءَاصَال—
- اِسْتِئْصالeradication; extermination
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5أَصُلَ · أصلّ · آصلَ
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: فَعُلَ يَفْعُلُ (u – u; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
Verbal nouns6أَصْل · أَصَل · إِيصال
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- أَصْلthe lower, or lowest, part of a thingLaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×3library ×50LaneIbn Fāris
- أَصَلForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
- إِيصالconnection; transportationautoForm IV · Lane: inf. n.library ×1Lane
- اِسْتِئْصالeradication; exterminationautoForm Xlibrary ×2
Participles2مُؤْصِل · مُسْتَأْصِل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative1أَصِيل
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns9أَصيلَة · أَصَلَة · أَصِل
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals4أُصُول · ءَاصَال · أَصَل
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 13 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.
Not in our sources. A possible shape, not a word we can show: the Quran, the library and Lane do not have it for this root.
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 · 170'Istaʾṣaltu this tree' (استأصلت هذه الشجرة) means its root became firmly established.
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 · 393Al-aṣl (الأصل) is the singular of uṣūl (الأصول, 'roots').
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters hamza, ṣād, and lām form three root meanings, far apart from one another.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502'Bi-l-ghuduwwi wa-l-āṣāl' (بالغدو والآصال) [Q 7:205]: meaning the evenings (al-ʿashāyā).
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 · 711Al-aṣl (الأصل) is the lowest/bottommost part of anything;
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 ص ل
الهمزة والصاد واللام ثلاثة أصول متباعد بعضها من بعض أحدها أساس الشيء والثاني الحية والثالث ما كان من النهار بعد العشي
a-ṣ-l has three roots, far removed from one another: one is the foundation of a thing, the second is the snake, and the third is what comes of the day after the evening. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×10
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
- صṣādtongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuant, velarisedSīb. · I. Jinnī
- لlāmedge of the tongue · voiced, in betweenI. 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 ↗
ص
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
ل
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان، من بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى، مما فويق الضاحك والناب والرباعية والثنية، مخرج اللام
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, just above the premolar, the canine, the lateral and the central incisor, is the place of the lām. Ibn Jinnī, lines 977–978 ↗
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 2583ص
Level of existence: التراب · earth
Divine Name: المميت · al-Mumīt, the Death-Giver
Lunar mansion: البلدة · al-Balda
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62111Spheres 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 2580ل
Level of existence: السماء الثالثة · the third heaven
Divine Name: القاهر · the Subduer (al-Qāhir)
Lunar mansion: العوا · al-ʿAwwā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64654Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2576 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577Meaning 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.
ص
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع غبار الأرض في الموقف بين يدي الله عز وجل.
It is all the dust of the earth at the Standing (on the Day of Judgement) before God, Mighty and Majestic.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي جميع نباتاتها.
It is all its (the earth's) plants.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأرضون السبع.
It is the seven earths.
ل
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي حصول المتكلم على شيء عظيم، وتكون إشارة إلى شيء عظيم.
It is the speaker's attaining of something great, and it serves as an indication of something great.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نهاية له.
It is an indication of the thing that has no end.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة من المتكلم إلى وجود ذاته أو إلى ذاته.
It is an indication by the speaker of the existence of his self, or of his self.
In the sister scriptsHebrew א צ לSyriac ܐ ܨ ܠ
| Arabic | أ ص ل |
| Hebrew | א צ ל |
| Syriac | ܐ ܨ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩱 𐩮 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤀 𐤑 𐤋 |
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 already gives the base sense (استأصل = the tree's root is firmly fixed;well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already gives the base sense (استأصل = the tree's root is firmly fixed; أصيل الرأي = sound in judgment) alongside the homonymous snake (al-aṣala) and the time-of-day sense (al-aṣīl, evening). Al-Jawharī confirms أصل as 'one of the uṣūl' with استأصله = to uproot from its base, and fixes أصيل as the period from ʿaṣr to maghrib. Ibn Fāris formalizes this as three distinct, unrelated roots sharing the letters أ-ص-ل by coincidence rather than derivation. Al-Rāghib supplies the defining formula: aṣl al-shayʾ is 'its foundation such that, were it imagined elevated, the rest of the thing would rise with its rising' — glossing the tree-parable of Q14:24 — and treats aṣīl as the Quranic evening (7:205, 48:9). Ibn Manẓūr adds that aṣl is 'the bottom/underside of anything' (asfal kull shayʾ) and reports Ibn Jinnī's technical extension of aṣliyya to grammatical root-letters.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, أصل
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, أصل
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, أصل
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, أصل
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, أصل
Letters & soundIn the letter-tables given, ص is assigned to 'earth/dust' (al-Dabbāgh: the dust of the earth at the Standing before God) and ل to 'the third heaven' (al-Dabbāgh: the speaker's attainment of something great, an indication of greatness) — a striking pairing with al-Rāghib's definition of aṣl as the low foundation whose elevation raises the whole.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the letter-tables given, ص is assigned to 'earth/dust' (al-Dabbāgh: the dust of the earth at the Standing before God) and ل to 'the third heaven' (al-Dabbāgh: the speaker's attainment of something great, an indication of greatness) — a striking pairing with al-Rāghib's definition of aṣl as the low foundation whose elevation raises the whole. No entry is given for أ. This reading is suggestive only; mainstream historical linguistics does not treat individual root-letters as bearers of stable meaning, and the correspondence should be held loosely.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings of the fatḥa series (as supplied)
Root structureNo chapter-neighbor roots for أ-ص-ل were supplied by Ibn Fāris's arrangement, so the two-letter nucleus cannot be triangulated against siblings here.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
No chapter-neighbor roots for أ-ص-ل were supplied by Ibn Fāris's arrangement, so the two-letter nucleus cannot be triangulated against siblings here. Among the six permutations of the letters, only أصل itself is robustly attested (and, per Ibn Fāris, internally trebled in meaning); ألص, صأل, and لأص are unattested. صلا and لصا are marked as attested roots but no gloss was supplied, so any semantic link (e.g., to fire/roasting for صلا) remains an open juxtaposition rather than a claim. Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar) would invite comparison of أصل with these transpositions, but the data here do not confirm a shared kernel-meaning across them.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, أصل
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate is available for the 'foundation/root' sense of أصل;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate is available for the 'foundation/root' sense of أصل; Hebrew has a root ʾ-ṣ-l (as in אצל, 'beside; to withhold/set apart', e.g. Numbers 11:17) that shares the consonants but not clearly the meaning, so any connection is speculative at best. This appears to be an Arabic-internal semantic cluster rather than a loanword or a transparently inherited Common Semitic term for 'root/base' (the more usual Semitic word-family for 'root' is š-r-š, cf. Hebrew šōreš, Arabic shirsh/jidhr).
Draws on: no confident cognate
Quranic exegesisAt 14:24, in the parable of the good word as a good tree ('aṣluhā thābitun wa-farʿuhā fī l-samāʾ'), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read aṣl as the fixed root of faith/the confession of unity, with the branch reaching heaven figuring the ascent of good deeds and speech;plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 14:24, in the parable of the good word as a good tree ('aṣluhā thābitun wa-farʿuhā fī l-samāʾ'), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read aṣl as the fixed root of faith/the confession of unity, with the branch reaching heaven figuring the ascent of good deeds and speech; al-Rāghib cites the same verse for his technical definition of aṣl as load-bearing foundation. The far more frequent Quranic occurrences are of aṣīl (evening) paired with bukra (morning) as in 7:205, 33:42, 48:9, marking the two poles of the day for remembrance and glorification (dhikr/tasbīḥ); exegetes gloss aṣīl simply as the time from ʿaṣr to sunset, following the lexicographical consensus.
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī speaks of knowing 'the root (aṣl) of the forms of the world receptive to its spirits' as a matter attainable only through divine unveiling (kashf ilāhī), not discursive reasoning — this is what qualifies the human being to be called 'human' and 'vicegerent'.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī speaks of knowing 'the root (aṣl) of the forms of the world receptive to its spirits' as a matter attainable only through divine unveiling (kashf ilāhī), not discursive reasoning — this is what qualifies the human being to be called 'human' and 'vicegerent'. Here aṣl functions not merely lexically but as the hidden ontological ground of receptive forms, mirrored by al-Rāghib's 'foundation that lifts the whole with it' but redirected toward cosmological origination. No separate Iṣṭilāḥ entry for aṣl was supplied.
Draws on: inFassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference