Root · 7 in the Quran · 22 in 8 texts of the library
حظظPer Ibn Fāris: portion and good fortune. (root hzz)
الحاء والظاء أصل واحد وهو النصيب والجد
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ح ظ ظ that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
3 words1 verb1 participle1 intensive or elative
- حَظِيظfortunate
- أَحَظَّ—
- مَحْظُوظ—
The whole family3 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 3 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 · 170Al-ḥaẓẓ (الحظ) is the share of excellence and good (an-naṣīb min al-faḍl wa-l-khayr), and its plural is al-ḥuẓūẓ (الحظوظ).
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-ḥaẓẓ (الحظ) is share and fortune (an-naṣīb wa-l-jadd).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Ḥāʾ and ẓāʾ [together] form one root, meaning 'share' and 'fortune' (an-naṣīb wa-l-jadd).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-ḥaẓẓ (الحظ) is the apportioned share (an-naṣīb al-muqaddar).
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-ḥaẓẓ (الحظ) is the share (an-naṣīb).
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 their orders. Choose one.
ح ظ ظ
الحاء والظاء أصل واحد وهو النصيب والجد
ḥ-ẕ: one root, which is a share and fortune. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Quran ×7
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
- حḥāʾmiddle of the throat · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- ظẓāʾtongue-tip, edges of the teeth · voiced, continuant, velarisedSīb. · I. Jinnī
- ظẓāʾtongue-tip, edges of the teeth · voiced, continuant, velarisedSīb. · 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
ح
ومن أوسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26548–26549 ↗
ومن وسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 970 ↗
ظ
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 ↗
ظ
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 ↗
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
ح
Level of existence: الجوهر الهبابي · the dust-like substance (spelled الهبابي in the text)
Divine Name: الآخر · al-Ākhir, the Last
Lunar mansion: الدبران · al-Dabarān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62076Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
ظ
Level of existence: المعادن · the minerals
Divine Name: العزيز · the Mighty (al-ʿAzīz)
Lunar mansion: سعد الذابح · Saʿd al-Dhābiḥ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65491Spheres 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 2582ظ
Level of existence: المعادن · the minerals
Divine Name: العزيز · the Mighty (al-ʿAzīz)
Lunar mansion: سعد الذابح · Saʿd al-Dhābiḥ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65491Spheres 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 2582Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ح
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي تدل على الإحاطة والشمول للجميع.
It denotes encompassing and inclusion of everything.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العدد الكثير الخارج عن بني آدم كالنجوم.
It is a great number external to the children of Adam, such as the stars.
With kasra ـِ
فهي العدد الداخل في الذات أو للذات عليه ولاية كملكية العبيد والدنانير والدراهم وغير ذلك.
It is a number contained within the self, or over which the self has authority, such as ownership of slaves, dinars, dirhams and the like.
ظ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي هو عظيم في نفسه ولا يكون معه ضده، كالجود في الشرفاء والغش في اليهود.
It is an indication of the thing that is great in itself and is not accompanied by its opposite, such as generosity in the sharīfs and deceit in the Jews.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يتبع تحرك نفسه وهي تسعى في هلاكه.
It is an indication of the thing that follows the movement of its own soul while that soul strives for its destruction.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يتضرر منه العبد ومن طبعه أنه يضر.
It is an indication of the thing by which the servant is harmed and whose nature is to harm.
ظ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي هو عظيم في نفسه ولا يكون معه ضده، كالجود في الشرفاء والغش في اليهود.
It is an indication of the thing that is great in itself and is not accompanied by its opposite, such as generosity in the sharīfs and deceit in the Jews.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يتبع تحرك نفسه وهي تسعى في هلاكه.
It is an indication of the thing that follows the movement of its own soul while that soul strives for its destruction.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يتضرر منه العبد ومن طبعه أنه يضر.
It is an indication of the thing by which the servant is harmed and whose nature is to harm.
Two-letter nucleus2 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterح ظ
Ibn Fāris groups his roots under two-letter chapters (“the X and the Y and what makes them three”). These are the roots of this root's chapter with the core sense he gives each. Setting them side by side is our juxtaposition; he does not himself draw a shared meaning. His chapter heading, line 7290 ↗
- حظرالحاء والظاء والراء أصل واحد يدل على المنعQ 2 · L7300
- حظلالحاء والظاء واللام أصل واحد وهو قريب من الذي قبله فالحظل الغيرة ومنع المرأة من التصرف والحركةL7307
In the sister scriptsHebrew ח צ צSyriac ܚ ܛ ܛ
| Arabic | ح ظ ظ |
| Hebrew | ח צ צ |
| Syriac | ܚ ܛ ܛ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩢 𐩼 𐩼 |
| Phoenician | 𐤇 𐤑 𐤑 |
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 defines al-ḥaẓẓ as al-naṣīb min al-faḍl wa-l-khayr, 'the portion of grace and good', plural ḥuẓūẓ, noting that fulān ḥaẓīẓ is said though no verb had been heard from the root (he also records a dialectal Ḥimṣī pronunciation ḥanẓ with an unetymological nasalization).well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl defines al-ḥaẓẓ as al-naṣīb min al-faḍl wa-l-khayr, 'the portion of grace and good', plural ḥuẓūẓ, noting that fulān ḥaẓīẓ is said though no verb had been heard from the root (he also records a dialectal Ḥimṣī pronunciation ḥanẓ with an unetymological nasalization). Al-Jawharī confirms al-ḥaẓẓ as al-naṣīb wa-l-jadd, 'portion and fortune', gives the irregular plurals aḥuẓẓ and ḥuẓūẓ/aḥāẓ, and does supply a verb, ḥaẓiẓtu taḥaẓẓu, yielding ḥaẓẓ, ḥaẓīẓ, maḥẓūẓ; he separately notes ḥaẓaẓ as a dialectal variant of ḥaḍaḍ, an unrelated medicinal substance. Ibn Fāris's maqāyīs reduces the root to this single sense, portion and good fortune, citing fulān aḥaẓẓu min fulān. Al-Rāghib sharpens the definition to al-naṣīb al-muqaddar, 'the apportioned, decreed share', citing Qurʾān 5:14 and 4:11. Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān assembles these reports, including the irregular poetic plurals ḥiẓāẓ and aḥāẓ, and Lane confirms ḥaẓẓa/aḥaẓẓa as 'he was, or became, fortunate' or, in one report, 'rich, in a state of competence'.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Mufradāt · Lisān · Lane
- Lisān al-ʿArab, ḥ-ẓ-ẓ
- Lane's Lexicon, ḥ-ẓ-ẓ
Letters & soundAl-Dabbāgh reads ḥāʾ as encompassing and inclusive, and ẓāʾ as marking a thing that is great in itself and unaccompanied by its opposite, such as generosity in the noble or (his example) deceit among Jews.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Dabbāgh reads ḥāʾ as encompassing and inclusive, and ẓāʾ as marking a thing that is great in itself and unaccompanied by its opposite, such as generosity in the noble or (his example) deceit among Jews. On this reading, the doubling of ẓāʾ in ḥaẓẓ could be taken to intensify the sense of a portion that is wholly, unequivocally one's own, without admixture of its contrary (lack). This is an interpretive extrapolation from al-Dabbāgh's general letter-values, not a claim he makes about this specific word, and belongs to sound-symbolism speculation rather than established linguistics.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh letter-meanings · Akbarian letter table (akbari198)
- al-Dabbāgh letter-meanings
Root structureAs a geminate (doubled) root, ḥ-ẓ-ẓ permits almost no permutation;uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
As a geminate (doubled) root, ḥ-ẓ-ẓ permits almost no permutation; only the root itself is attested. Ibn Fāris situates it, however, beside two-letter neighbors ḥ-ẓ-r ('prevention, prohibition') and ḥ-ẓ-l ('jealousy, restraining a wife's movement, close in sense to the previous one'). One might juxtapose these: a ḥaẓẓ, a 'share', could be understood as what has been cut out and reserved or restricted for one specifically, echoing the restrictive sense of ḥaẓr/ḥaẓl. This is a suggestive pattern in Ibn Fāris's own arrangement, not an asserted derivation.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris nucleus siblings · permutation table
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for ḥẓẓ in the sense 'portion, good fortune' is attested.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for ḥẓẓ in the sense 'portion, good fortune' is attested. Hebrew's ordinary word for 'portion, share' is ḥēleq (root ḥ-l-q), a different root entirely; Hebrew ḥōq/ḥuqqāh ('statute, decree', root ḥ-q-q) shares the geminate q rather than ẓ and is not a confident match. The Arabic root appears to stand without a demonstrable cognate in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian, and is not a loanword.
Draws on: comparative Semitic lexica
Quranic exegesisAt Qurʾān 4:11, li'l-dhakari mithlu ḥaẓẓi'l-unthayayn assigns the fixed inheritance ḥaẓẓ, the decreed legal share, of a son as double that of a daughter;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Qurʾān 4:11, li'l-dhakari mithlu ḥaẓẓi'l-unthayayn assigns the fixed inheritance ḥaẓẓ, the decreed legal share, of a son as double that of a daughter; al-Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī treat this ḥaẓẓ as the naṣīb mafrūḍ, the apportioned share fixed by revealed law, and discuss its rationale in terms of the male's greater financial responsibility. At Qurʾān 3:176, those who hasten into disbelief are said to have lā ḥaẓẓa lahum, no portion, in the Hereafter; the exegetes read this as denial of any share of reward or standing before God. Al-Rāghib's definition, al-naṣīb al-muqaddar, the portion as divinely decreed, underlies both readings, distinguishing ḥaẓẓ as an apportioned, often providential share from other Qurʾānic words for entitlement.
Draws on: Ṭabarī · Zamakhsharī · Rāzī · Rāghib
Akbarian readingThe Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt speaks of the contingent being who knows itself distinct from its Originator through its poverty and need, yet 'has no ḥaẓẓ (share) in the essential necessity (al-wujūb al-dhātī) belonging to the Existence of the Real'.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
The Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt speaks of the contingent being who knows itself distinct from its Originator through its poverty and need, yet 'has no ḥaẓẓ (share) in the essential necessity (al-wujūb al-dhātī) belonging to the Existence of the Real'. Here ḥaẓẓ marks the ontological boundary between the Necessary and the contingent: no created thing, however elevated, partakes in the self-necessity that belongs to God's Existence alone. The word thus carries into Ibn ʿArabī's ontology the classical sense of an apportioned share, applied to the (impossible) question of whether contingency could share in necessity, and answered negatively.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference