Root · 170 in the Quran · 363 in 23 texts of the library
أولIbn Fāris gives two roots: the beginning of a matter and its end or outcome. (root wl)
الهمزة والواو واللام أصلان ابتداء الأمر وانتهاؤه أما الأول
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of أ و ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
25 words5 verbs5 verbal nouns3 participles1 intensive or elative9 other nouns2 plurals
- أَوَّلfirst
- أَوَّلِينplural of first
- تَأْوِيلexplanation; interpretation
- آلَhe, or it, returned
- أوّلَhe returned it to him, or it
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5آلَ · أوّلَ · تَاَوَّلَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns5تَأْوِيل · أَوْل · إِيَال
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَأْوِيلexplanation; interpretationautoForm II · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×17library ×5LaneIbn Fāris
- أَوْلForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
- إِيَالthe vessel, or receptacle, of thickening, or thick, milkLaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
- إِيَالَةrule, or governmentLaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
- تَأَوُّلForm II · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
Participles3مُؤْتَال · مُتَأَوَّل · مُتَأَوِّل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative1أوَيْل
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- أوَيْلquality (faʿīl)Lane
Other nouns9أَوَّل · أَيِّل · أُولَى
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- أَوَّلfirstautonounQurʾān ×82library ×155LaneIbn Fāris
- أَيِّلnounLaneIbn Fāris
- أُولَىnounLaneIbn Fāris
- أُيَّلnounLaneIbn Fāris
Plurals2أَوَّلِين · أُيَّل
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- أَوَّلِينplural of firstfrom the singularsound plural of أَوَّلQurʾān ×32library ×2
- أُيَّلbroken plural of آئِلLaneIbn Fāris
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 · 170It is mentioned in the tafsīr that every name ending in -īl (إيل), such as Jibrāʾīl (جبرائيل), is 'devoted [as a servant] to God,' just as one says ʿAbdallāh (عبد الله) and ʿUbaydallāh (عبيد الله).
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 · 393Aylah (أيلة): the name of a place.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Hamza, wāw, and lām form two roots (aṣlān): the beginning of a thing and its end.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Aylah (أيلة): the name of a town.
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 و ل
الهمزة والواو واللام أصلان ابتداء الأمر وانتهاؤه أما الأول
a-w-l has two roots: the beginning of a matter and its end. As for the first… AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×170
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
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · 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 ↗
و
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء، والميم، والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Sībawayh, line 26563 ↗
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء والميم والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Ibn Jinnī, line 986 ↗
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 2583و
Level of existence: تعيين الرتب والمقامات والمنازل · the determination of ranks, stations and waystations
Divine Name: رفيع الدرجات · Rafīʿ al-Darajāt, Exalted in Degrees
Lunar mansion: الرشا · al-Rashāʾ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62121Spheres 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 2582ل
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.
و
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة في الإنسان مثل العروق والأصابع وما أشبه ذلك.
It is the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins, fingers and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الأشياء المباينة لبني آدم مثل الأفلاك والجبال وما أشبه ذلك
It is things distinct from the children of Adam, such as the celestial spheres, mountains and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة المستقذرة أو المبغوضة كالأمعاء ونحوها.
It is intertwined things that are filthy or detested, such as the intestines and the like.
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 ו לSyriac ܐ ܘ ܠ
| Arabic | أ و ل |
| Hebrew | א ו ל |
| Syriac | ܐ ܘ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩱 𐩥 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤀 𐤅 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 lexiconThe al-Khalīl, al-Jawharī and Ibn Manẓūr excerpts supplied belong to the neighbouring entry ʾ-y-l.plausible
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
The al-Khalīl, al-Jawharī and Ibn Manẓūr excerpts supplied belong to the neighbouring entry ʾ-y-l. They cover Īl as a Hebrew or Syriac name of God, found in Jibrāʾīl and read like ʿAbd Allāh; Īliyāʾ for Jerusalem; and the town Ayla. Al-Khalīl also derives ayyil, 'mountain stag', from the fact that it yaʾūlu, resorts, to the mountains. He records iyāl, a vessel in which drink is reduced (ʾultu al-sharāb), and both of these use āla in its own sense. Ibn Fāris sets out the two poles of the root: awwal, ūlā and awwala (a she-camel at the head of the herd) for 'beginning', and he discusses whether awwal is built from ʾ-w-l or from w-w-l. Ibn Manẓūr adds Ibn al-Kalbī's and al-Azharī's remarks on Īl/Il. Lane gives the verbal core āla, yaʾūlu, 'he or it returned', especially to an origin or source, which accounts for the 'outcome' pole and for taʾwīl.
Draws on: Kitāb al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Lisān al-ʿArab · Lane
- Wiktionary: Arabic root ʾ-w-l (link not verified)
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha, s.v. أول
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. آل
Letters & soundThe data give no Akbarian letter values for hamza, wāw or lām, and no al-Dabbāgh value for hamza.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
The data give no Akbarian letter values for hamza, wāw or lām, and no al-Dabbāgh value for hamza. Al-Dabbāgh reads wāw as 'intertwined things in the human being, such as veins and fingers' and lām as 'the attainment of something great'. A symbolist could align the glottal onset of hamza with 'beginning' and the rounded, returning wāw with āla, 'to return'. Mainstream linguistics treats such readings as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh (Ibrīz) · sound symbolism
- al-Dabbāgh, in Aḥmad b. al-Mubārak, al-Ibrīz
Root structureNo nucleus siblings from Ibn Fāris's chapter were supplied for this root.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
No nucleus siblings from Ibn Fāris's chapter were supplied for this root. Of the permutations, w-ʾ-l is attested. Ibn Fāris glosses it as gathering and seeking refuge (compare mawʾil, 'refuge'), which can be set beside āla, 'to resort, return'. The permutation l-ʾ-w has two isolated words in Ibn Fāris, hardship and an animal, and shows no evident relation. The permutation ʾ-l-w occurs 37 times in the Quran according to the data. Any link across these permutations is a juxtaposition only.
Draws on: permutations · Maqāyīs
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, s.v. وأل
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (greater derivation) (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate for awwal or āla ('return') can be offered here, and neither word is a loan.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate for awwal or āla ('return') can be offered here, and neither word is a loan. The adjacent root ʾ-y-l is a different case. The lexicographers themselves call Īl Hebrew or Syriac, and it corresponds to Hebrew ʾēl. Ayyil, 'stag', corresponds to Hebrew ʾayyāl, 'deer'. These belong to ʾ-y-l, and al-Khalīl's derivation of ayyil from āla is a native etymology, not a comparative finding.
Draws on: comparative Semitic · lexicographers' own notes
- Wiktionary: אַיָּל (link not verified)
- Wiktionary: אֵל (link not verified)
Quranic exegesisAt 2:41 ('do not be the first to disbelieve in it'), al-Ṭabarī takes the address to be the Jews of Medina, as the first of the People of the Book expected to believe.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 2:41 ('do not be the first to disbelieve in it'), al-Ṭabarī takes the address to be the Jews of Medina, as the first of the People of the Book expected to believe. Al-Zamakhsharī explains the singular awwal kāfir as standing for 'the first party that disbelieves'. At 2:49–50, āl Firʿawn is Pharaoh's people and followers. Al-Rāghib and al-Zamakhsharī discuss the view that āl comes from ahl and is used only of persons of standing. Ulī at 2:179 and 2:197 ('possessors of minds') is treated as a plural meaning dhawū with no singular from its own letters. Al-Rāghib defines taʾwīl as returning a thing to its intended end, and at 3:7 al-Ṭabarī favours pausing after 'none knows its taʾwīl except God', while al-Zamakhsharī allows that those firm in knowledge also know it.
Philosophy & kalāmIn Avicenna's metaphysics al-Awwal, 'the First', is a standard designation of the Necessary Existent as the principle from which all else proceeds.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In Avicenna's metaphysics al-Awwal, 'the First', is a standard designation of the Necessary Existent as the principle from which all else proceeds. Its priority there is causal and essential, and it has no temporal sense. Taʾwīl became a methodological term in kalām for reading scripture away from its apparent sense when reason requires it. Al-Ghazālī set out rules for this in his Qānūn al-taʾwīl.
Draws on: Avicenna · al-Ghazālī
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, God's eternity (azal, qidam) excludes the kind of firstness (awwaliyya) that consists in existence opening out of non-existence.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, God's eternity (azal, qidam) excludes the kind of firstness (awwaliyya) that consists in existence opening out of non-existence. So awwaliyya in that sense is not ascribed to Him, even though He is al-Awwal. Ibn ʿArabī says this is why He is also called al-Ākhir. If His firstness were the firstness of a bounded, conditioned existence, He could not be the Last of the bounded. The continuation of the passage, beyond the excerpt, grounds this in the endlessness of contingents. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition for this root is supplied.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Q 57:3 ↗
Reference