Root · 12 in the Quran · 148 in 17 texts of the library
دركa single root meaning one thing catching up with another and reaching it. (root drk)
الدال والراء والكاف أصل واحد وهو لحوق الشيء بالشيء ووصوله إليه
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of د ر ك that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
27 words7 verbs2 verbal nouns4 participles1 place or instrument1 intensive or elative8 other nouns4 plurals
- أَدْرَكَhe, or it, attained, reached, overtook, or came up with, him, or it
- إِدْراكattainment; realization
- مُدْرِكmature; rational
- تَدَارَكَthey attained, reached, overtook, or came up with, one another
- دَرَكthe act of attaining, reaching, or overtaking
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7دَرَكَ · أَدْرَكَ · تَدَارَكَ
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: فَعَلَ (a; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- دَرَكَForm ILaneIbn Fāris
- أَدْرَكَhe, or it, attained, reached, overtook, or came up with, him, or itLaneForm IVQurʾān ×6library ×56LaneIbn Fāris
- تَدَارَكَthey attained, reached, overtook, or came up with, one anotherLaneForm VIQurʾān ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- دَرَّكَthe dropping of rain with close consecutiveness, as though one portion …LaneForm IILaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns2إِدْراك · دِرَاك
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- إِدْراكattainment; realizationautoForm IV · Lane: inf. n.library ×40Lane
- دِرَاكuninterrupted beating or strikingLaneForm III · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles4مُدْرِك · مُتَدَارِك · مُدْرَك
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُدْرِكmature; rationalautoactive, Form IVlibrary ×12Lane
- مُتَدَارِكuninterruptedLaneactive, Form VILane
- مُدْرَكthe sources from which are sought the ordinances of the lawLanepassive, Form IVLane
- مُسْتَدْرَكsupplementLanepassive, Form XLane
Place, time and instrument1مَدْرَك
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مَدْرَكnoun of place or timeLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative1دَرَّاك
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- دَرَّاكintensive (faʿʿāl)Lane
Other nouns8دَرَك · دَرْك · دَرَاك
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals4إِدْراكات · مُدْرَكُون · مُدْرِكات
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- إِدْراكاتsound plural of إِدْراكlibrary ×5
- مُدْرَكُونsound plural of مُدْرَكQurʾān ×1
- مُدْرِكاتsound plural of مُدْرِكlibrary ×2
- أَدْرَاكbroken plural of دَرَكLane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 15 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
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-darak (الدرك): the attaining of a need or an object sought.
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-idrāk (الإدراك): overtaking (al-luḥūq).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters dāl, rā', and kāf [form] a single root, which is the attachment of one thing to another and its reaching it.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-darak (الدرك) is like al-daraj (الدرج), but al-daraj is said with regard to ascending, while al-darak is said with regard to descending;
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-darak (الدرك): overtaking (al-luḥāq);
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 ↗
Technical definitions5 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الإدراك
إحاطة الشيء بكماله.
Al-idrāk (الإدراك): the encompassing of a thing in its entirety. AI
الإدراك
هو حصول الصورة عند النفس الناطقة.
Al-idrāk (الإدراك): it is the occurrence of the form [image] in the rational soul. AI
الإدراك
تمثيل حقيقة الشيء وحده من غير حكم عليه بنفي أو إثبات، ويسمى تصورا، ومع الحكم بأحدهما يسمى تصديقا.
Al-idrāk (الإدراك): the representation of the reality of a thing alone, without any judgment upon it by negation or affirmation — this is called taṣawwur (تصور) [conception]; and when accompanied by judgment with one of the two [negation or affirmation], it is called taṣdīq (تصديق) [assent]. AI
الاستدراك
في اللغة طلب تدارك السامع، وفي الاصطلاح رفع توهم تولد من كلام سابق، والفرق بين الاستدراك والاضراب: أن الاستدراك هو رفع توهم يتولد من الكلام المقدم رفعا شبيها بالاستثناء. نحو: جاءني زيد لكن عمرو؛ لدفع وهم المخاطب أن عمرا جاء كزيد، بناء على ملابسة بينهما وملاءمة، والإضراب، هو أن يجعل المتبوع في حكم المسكوت عنه، يحتمل أن يلابسه الحكم وألا يلابسه، فنحو: جاءني زيد بل عمرو، يحتمل مجيء زيد وعدم مجيئه. وفي كلام ابن الحاجب أنه يقتضي عدم المجيء قطعا.
Al-istidrāk (الاستدراك): in language, it is seeking to secure the listener's understanding [correcting a lapse]; and in technical usage, it is the removal of a misconception arising from preceding speech. The difference between al-istidrāk and al-iḍrāb is: al-istidrāk is the removal of a misconception arising from the preceding speech, a removal resembling exception (istithnā'), as in 'jā'anī Zaydun lākin ʿAmrun' (جاءني زيد لكن عمرو) [Zayd came to me, but ʿAmr...] — to dispel the addressee's supposition that ʿAmr came just as Zayd did, on the basis of some association and correspondence between the two. Al-iḍrāb (الإضراب) is making the preceding [statement] as though it were passed over in silence, such that it may or may not still apply; thus 'jā'anī Zaydun bal ʿAmrun' (جاءني زيد بل عمرو) allows for the possibility that Zayd came or did not come. And in the words of Ibn al-Ḥājib, [al-iḍrāb] necessarily implies non-occurrence [of the first matter] definitively. AI
المدرك
هو الذي أدرك الإمام بعد تكبيرة الافتتاح.
Al-mudrik (المدرك): he who catches up with the imām [prayer leader] after the opening takbīr. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
د ر ك
الدال والراء والكاف أصل واحد وهو لحوق الشيء بالشيء ووصوله إليه
d-r-k is one root, and it is the attaining of one thing by another and its reaching it. AI
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
- دdāltongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- رrāʾtip of the tongue, near the nūn · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- كkāfback of the tongue · voiceless, stopSīb. · 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
د
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا مخرج الطاء، والدال، والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26559 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا، مخرج الطاء والدال والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 982 ↗
ر
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا لانحرافه إلى اللام مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26557–26558 ↗
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا، لانحرافه إلى اللام، مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, lines 980–981 ↗
ك
ومن أسفل من موضع القاف من اللسان قليلا ومما يليه من الحنك الأعلى مخرج الكاف
From a little lower on the tongue than the qāf's place, and the upper palate next to it, is the place of the kāf. Sībawayh, lines 26551–26552 ↗
ومن أسفل من ذلك وأدنى إلى مقدم الفم مخرج الكاف
From lower than that and nearer the front of the mouth is the place of the kāf. Ibn Jinnī, line 973 ↗
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
د
Level of existence: السماء الدنيا · the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā)
Divine Name: المبين · the Clarifier (al-Mubīn)
Lunar mansion: الأكليل · al-Iklīl
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64682Spheres 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 2582ر
Level of existence: السماء الخامسة · the fifth heaven
Divine Name: المصور · the Form-Giver (al-Muṣawwir)
Lunar mansion: الغفر · al-Ghafr
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64675Spheres 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 2582ك
Level of existence: الكرسي والقدمين · the Footstool and the two Feet
Divine Name: الشكور · al-Shakūr, the Grateful
Lunar mansion: النثرة · al-Nathra
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62083Spheres 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
د
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى خارج عن الذات.
It is an indication of something external to the self.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى ما هو قليل أو قبيح ومعه غضب فيهما.
It is an indication of what is small or ugly, accompanied by anger in both cases.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما في الذات أو إلى ما هو داخل عليها أو إلى ما هو قريب منها.
It is an indication of what is in the self, or what is entering upon it, or what is near to it.
ر
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الخيرات الظاهرة والباطنة.
It is an indication of all goods, outward and inward.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الواحد في نفسه وهو ظاهر.
It is an indication of the one in itself, and it is manifest.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي فيه الروح وليس من بني آدم، أو إشارة إلى الروح نفسها.
It is an indication of a thing that has spirit in it but is not of the children of Adam, or an indication of the spirit itself.
ك
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى حقيقة العبودية الكاملة.
It is an indication of the reality of perfect servanthood.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العبد الأسود أو القبيح.
It is the black or ugly slave/servant.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى إضافة العبودية إليك، وقال مرة أخرى: فهي إشارة منك إليك بالعبودية.
It is an indication of attributing servanthood to you. On another occasion he said: it is an indication from you to yourself of servanthood.
Two-letter nucleus7 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterد ر
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 9748 ↗
- درزالدال والراء والزاء ليس بشيء ولا أحسب العربL9749
- درصالدال والراء والصاد ليس أصلا يقاس عليه ولا يفرع منه لكنهم يقولون الدرص ولد الفأرة وجمعه درصة ويقولون وقع القوم في أم أدراص إذا وقعوا في مهلكة وهو ذاك L9760
- درعالدال والراء والعين أصل واحد وهو شيء من اللباس ثم يحمل عليه تشبيها فالدرع درع الحديد مؤنثه والجمع دروع وأدراع ودرع المرأة قميصها مذكر وهذا هو الأصل ثمL9765
- درمالدال والراء والميم أصل يدل على مقاربة ولينL9785
- درىالدال والراء والحرف المعتل والمهموز أما الذي ليس بمهموز فأصلان أحدهما قصد الشيء واعتماده طلبا والآخر حدة تكون في الشيء وأما المهموز فأصل واحد وهو دفع Q 29 · L9804
- دربالدال والراء والباء الصحيح منه أصل واحد وهو أن يغرى بالشيء ويلزمهL9838
- درحالدال والراء والحاء أصيل أيضا يقولون للرجل القصير درحاية ويكون مع ذلك ضخماL9857
In the sister scriptsHebrew ד ר כSyriac ܕ ܪ ܟ
| Arabic | د ر ك |
| Hebrew | ד ר כ |
| Syriac | ܕ ܪ ܟ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩵 𐩧 𐩫 |
| Phoenician | 𐤃 𐤓 𐤊 |
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 lists several senses without ranking them.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl lists several senses without ranking them. Darak is attaining what one needs, the lowest bottom of a thing, one of the seven levels of Hell, and a liability that follows on a transaction. Dirāk is one thing following close on another, as in thrusts or a horse running down game, and durka is the ring of the bowstring. Al-Jawharī makes idrāk equal to luḥūq, catching up, and extends it to seeing (adraktuhu bi-baṣarī), to a boy or fruit reaching maturity, and even to flour running out. Ibn Fāris reduces the whole root to one aṣl, one thing joining and reaching another. He derives both the rope-piece darak (by which the bucket is reached) and the darakāt of Hell from it, and reads Q 27:66 the same way. Al-Rāghib pairs darak with daraj: steps counted going down against steps counted going up, hence darakāt of the Fire against darajāt of the Garden. He defines adraka as reaching the furthest point of a thing. Ibn Manẓūr glosses darak as liḥāq and notes the rare intensive darrāk. Lane records that the bare verb daraka is unused and that tadrīk is rain falling in close succession, 'as though one portion overtook another'.
Draws on: al-Khalīl · al-Jawharī · Ibn Fāris · al-Rāghib · Ibn Manẓūr · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root د ر ك ↗
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. درك
Letters & soundIn al-Dabbāgh's letter meanings: dāl points to something external to the self, rāʾ to all goods outward and inward, and kāf to the reality of perfect servanthood.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In al-Dabbāgh's letter meanings: dāl points to something external to the self, rāʾ to all goods outward and inward, and kāf to the reality of perfect servanthood. Read together, these could be taken as a self reaching out to an object outside it and arriving at it. In the data given, Ibn ʿArabī's scheme assigns rāʾ to the Fifth Heaven and gives no correspondence for dāl or kāf. An imsās reading in Ibn Jinnī's manner would treat the order of the sounds as mirroring the order of an event, but the sources supply no specific claim for this root. Mainstream linguistics treats such sound symbolism as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh · Ibn ʿArabī letter correspondences · Ibn Jinnī imsās
Root structureIbn Fāris's d-r chapter places drk beside several neighbours: drb ('to be set on a thing and cling to it'), drm ('nearness and softness'), dry ('aiming at a thing in quest of it'), and drʿ (a garment).uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's d-r chapter places drk beside several neighbours: drb ('to be set on a thing and cling to it'), drm ('nearness and softness'), dry ('aiming at a thing in quest of it'), and drʿ (a garment). He rejects drz and drṣ as productive roots. Set next to one another, drb, drm, dry and drk share a sense of approach and contact with an object; this is a juxtaposition, not a demonstrated common origin. Of the permutations, rkd ('stillness', attested once in the Quran) and krd ('driving off') are recognised roots, rdk is not a root for Ibn Fāris, and kdr is attested once in the Quran but no Ibn Fāris definition is supplied here. No shared meaning runs through the permutations, so Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation (ishtiqāq akbar) does not usefully apply to this root.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris nucleus d-r · permutations
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (greater derivation chapter) (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew dāraḵ ('tread, march';uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew dāraḵ ('tread, march'; also 'tread, i.e. bend, a bow') and derek ('way') are often compared with Arabic d-r-k. Aramaic and Syriac d-r-k ('tread') belong to the same comparison. The consonants correspond regularly, and al-Khalīl's durka ('ring of the bowstring') offers an intriguing point of contact with the Hebrew idiom of treading the bow. The Arabic core sense ('overtake, reach') is still some distance from 'tread', so the cognate relation is plausible but not secure. There is no reason to regard the Arabic as a loanword.
Draws on: Hebrew dāraḵ · BDB
Quranic exegesisQ 4:78 ('wherever you are, death will overtake you') and 4:100 are read plainly as death catching up with a person.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Q 4:78 ('wherever you are, death will overtake you') and 4:100 are read plainly as death catching up with a person. Q 4:145 places the hypocrites in 'the lowest darak of the Fire', which the exegetes take as the deepest tier; al-Rāghib explains the word by its sense of descent. Q 7:38 iddārakū is explained, as in al-Khalīl and al-Jawharī, as tadārakū: the last of them catch up with the first and all are gathered in the Fire. For Q 27:66 (bal iddāraka ʿilmuhum fī l-ākhira) the commentators record several readings: their knowledge reached completion in the Hereafter when it no longer benefited them (Ibn Fāris's reading), or their knowledge failed or ran out regarding it. Q 6:103 ('sight does not reach Him') became a point of dispute. Al-Zamakhsharī uses it against the vision of God, while al-Ṭabarī reports and al-Rāzī argues that idrāk here means encompassing perception, so the verse denies encompassing without denying vision.
Philosophy & kalāmIn falsafa idrāk is the standard term for perception or apprehension in general.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In falsafa idrāk is the standard term for perception or apprehension in general. Avicenna's psychology describes it as the grasping of the form of the thing perceived. He ranks perception by degree of abstraction from matter: sensory, imaginative, estimative and intellectual. In kalām the question was whether idrāk is a kind of knowledge (ʿilm) or a distinct entity (maʿnā) created in the perceiver. Ashʿarī authors tend toward the second view, and the debate bears directly on the vision of God.
Draws on: Avicenna · kalām
Akbarian readingFaṣṣ Ādam uses idrāk at three points in the passages given.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Faṣṣ Ādam uses idrāk at three points in the passages given. It says that 'this kind of perception' of the origin of the world's forms comes only through divine unveiling (kashf ilāhī), not through rational reflection. It says that God, describing Himself as the Outward and the Inward, made the world of the unseen and the witnessed so that we perceive the Inward by our unseen and the Outward by our witnessing. It says that the world, poised between dense and subtle, is itself the veil upon itself, so that the Real is not perceived as He perceives Himself. Idrāk in this faṣṣ is therefore always perception tied to a receptacle and limited by it. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition is supplied for this root.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam
Illuminationist readingSuhrawardī reworks perception (idrāk) as illuminative presence.plausible
The word in Suhrawardī's philosophy of light.
Suhrawardī reworks perception (idrāk) as illuminative presence. In his account, vision occurs when the perceiver's light faces a lit object with no obstacle between them. It does not occur by a form being imprinted in the eye or by rays leaving it. The self's awareness of itself is the model case of perception by presence (ʿilm ḥuḍūrī).
Draws on: Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq
Reference