Root · 9 in the Quran · 69 in 11 texts of the library
دومStillness and constancy — per Ibn Fāris, a single, regular sense. (root dwm)
الدال والواو والميم أصل واحد يدل على السكون واللزوم
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of د و م that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
36 words7 verbs6 verbal nouns4 participles3 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives12 other nouns2 plurals
- دَامُthe journey continued, or continued long, is not of established authority
- دَوام(office) hours
- دَائِمcontinuing, lasting, enduring, or remaining
- مُدَامcontinual, or lasting, rain
- دَائِمُون—
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7دَامُ · أَدامَ · دَوَّمَتِ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- دَامُthe journey continued, or continued long, is not of established authorityLaneForm IQurʾān ×7library ×29LaneIbn Fāris
- أَدامَhe made it to continue, last, endure, or remainLaneForm IVlibrary ×1Lane
- دَوَّمَتِForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- داومَForm IIILane
Verbal nouns6دَوام · تَدْوِيم · تَدْيِيم
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles4دَائِم · مُدَام · مُدِيم
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Place, time and instrument3مَدِيمَة · مِدْوَام · مِدْوَم
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2أَدْوَم · دَيُّوم
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns12دِيمَة · دَاوِمَة · دَوَمَاء
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 19 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: مَدِيمَة, 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-Jawharī · 393Dāma al-shay' yadūmu wa-yudāmu (دام الشيء يدوم ويدام) — dawman, dawāman, and daymūmatan — 'the thing persisted/endured';
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Dāl, wāw, and mīm form a single root indicating stillness (al-sukūn) and constancy/persistence (al-luzūm).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502The basic meaning of dawām (الدوام) is stillness (al-sukūn).
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 · 711Dāma al-shay' yadūmu wa-yudāmu (دام الشيء يدوم ويدام).
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.
د و م
الدال والواو والميم أصل واحد يدل على السكون واللزوم
d-w-m is one root that indicates stillness and persistence. 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
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- مmīmbetween the lips · 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
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 ↗
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 ↗
م
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 ↗
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 2582و
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 2582م
Level of existence: الإنسان · the human being
Divine Name: الجامع · al-Jāmiʿ, the Gatherer
Lunar mansion: المؤخر · al-Muʾakhkhar
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62119Spheres 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.
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.
م
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع المكونات.
It is all created beings.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العزيز القليل كماء العين، ومنه قيل مومو.
It is the precious, scarce thing, like the water of the eye; from it comes the expression 'mūmū'.
With kasra ـِ
فهي نور الذات ظاهرا كما في العين، وباطنا كما في القلب.
It is the light of the self, outwardly as in the eye and inwardly as in the heart.
Two-letter nucleus9 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterد و
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 10287 ↗
- دوىالدال والواو والحرف المعتل هذا باب يتقارب أصوله ولا يكاد شيء منه ينقاس فلذلك كتبنا كلماته على وجوهها فالدوي دوي النحل وهو ما يسمع منه إذا تجمع والدواءL10288
- دوسالدال والواو والسين أصيل وهو دوس الشيء تقول دسته والذي يداس به مدوس وحمل عليه قولهم لما يسن به الصيقل السيف مدوس كأنه عند اتكائه عليه كالذي يدوس الشيءL10337
- دوفالدال والواو والفاء كلمة واحدةL10343
- دوقالدال والواو والقاف ليس أصلا ولا فيه ما يعد لغة لكنهم يقولون مائق دائقL10344
- دوكالدال والواو والكاف أصل واحد يدل على ضغط وتزاحم فيقولون دكت الشيء دوكا والمداك صلاية الطيب يدوك عليها الإنسان الطيب دوكاL10345
- دولالدال والواو واللام أصلان أحدهما يدل على تحول شيء من مكان إلى مكان والآخر يدل على ضعف واسترخاء فأما الأول فقال أهل اللغة اندال القوم إذا تحولوا من مكاQ 2 · L10351
- دومالدال والواو والميم أصل واحد يدل على السكون واللزومQ 9 · L10359
- دونالدال والواو والنون أصل واحد يدل على المداناة والمقاربةQ 144 · L10386
- دوهالدال والواو والهاء ليس بشيء يقولون الدوه التحيرL10392
In the sister scriptsHebrew ד ו מSyriac ܕ ܘ ܡ
| Arabic | د و م |
| Hebrew | ד ו מ |
| Syriac | ܕ ܘ ܡ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩵 𐩥 𐩣 |
| Phoenician | 𐤃 𐤅 𐤌 |
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-Jawharī records dāma yadūmu/yadāmu with the images that anchor the root's field: dawwamat al-shams fī kabid al-samāʾ, the sun 'hovering' motionless at its zenith, and dawwamat al-qidr, calming a pot's boil with water.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Jawharī records dāma yadūmu/yadāmu with the images that anchor the root's field: dawwamat al-shams fī kabid al-samāʾ, the sun 'hovering' motionless at its zenith, and dawwamat al-qidr, calming a pot's boil with water. Ibn Fāris then states the single aṣl explicitly as sukūn wa luzūm, stillness and fixity, citing the still (dāʾim) water the Prophet forbade urinating into, and the hovering bird's dawwama in the air as a momentary pause. Al-Rāghib builds directly on this: the root of dawām is rest, and only by extension does it come to mean 'time stretching over a thing' (imtidād al-zamān ʿalayhi), as in the Quranic mā dumtu fīhim and mā dāmū fīhā. Ibn Manẓūr adds the grammarians' dispute over the irregular pairing dumta/tadūmu vs. dimta/tadāmu, and Lane preserves this morphological anomaly as evidence of the root's antiquity. The historical trajectory is thus paradoxical: 'permanence' is lexically built from 'not moving,' not from 'continuing to happen.'
Draws on: sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root د-و-م
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root د-و-م
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, root د-و-م
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root د-و-م
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, root د-و-م
Letters & soundIn the letter-correspondence table used here, د marks 'the lowest heaven,' و the 'determination of ranks, stations and waystations,' and م 'the human being' — a sequence that could be read as: exteriority (د), ordered stations (و), and the human traversing them (م), which resonates loosely with dawām as sustained passage through stable stations rather than flux.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the letter-correspondence table used here, د marks 'the lowest heaven,' و the 'determination of ranks, stations and waystations,' and م 'the human being' — a sequence that could be read as: exteriority (د), ordered stations (و), and the human traversing them (م), which resonates loosely with dawām as sustained passage through stable stations rather than flux. Al-Dabbāgh's fatḥa-glosses run parallel: د as what is external to the self, و as the intertwined connective tissue within the human being (veins, fingers), م as all created beings. This is offered only as a suggestive resonance; mainstream historical linguistics does not treat individual Arabic letters as bearers of fixed meaning, and no causal claim is intended.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh
- Akbarian letter-correspondence table (198)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter meanings (fatḥa series)
Root structureAmong Ibn Fāris's د-و chapters, دوم (stillness/fixity) sits beside دول, whose second sense is ḍaʿf wa-istirkhāʾ, weakness and slackening — a suggestive neighborhood, since both roots register a diminishment of motion or force, one as calm fixity, the other as flagging.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Among Ibn Fāris's د-و chapters, دوم (stillness/fixity) sits beside دول, whose second sense is ḍaʿf wa-istirkhāʾ, weakness and slackening — a suggestive neighborhood, since both roots register a diminishment of motion or force, one as calm fixity, the other as flagging. The permutation table for د-و-م itself (the letters reordered) shows only دوم (9 Qurʾānic occurrences) and ومد (intense heat/anger) marked as attested roots, while دمو, ودم, مدو and مود are given no independent standing — a fact Ibn Jinnī's greater-derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar) approach would note without claiming semantic causation between the orders. That مدو is glossed elsewhere as 'extension, prolongation' (imtidād) is a striking echo of دوم's own extended sense of duration, but this is juxtaposition only, not derivation.
Draws on: ibn-faris-nucleus · permutation-table
- Wiktionary, Arabic root appendix د و م (link not verified)
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, chapter on greater derivation (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew דמם (dmm), 'to be silent, still, cease' (e.g.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew דמם (dmm), 'to be silent, still, cease' (e.g. Leviticus 10:3, 'wa-yiddom Aharon'), matches the Arabic root's core sense of sukūn very closely in meaning, though the root-shapes differ: Arabic دوم is a hollow (mediae-wāw) root while Hebrew דמם is geminate. This kind of alternation between hollow and geminate biradical-plus reduplicated patterns is a recognized phenomenon across Semitic and makes a genuine historical connection plausible, though not certain given the consonantal mismatch. No Akkadian, Ge'ez, or South Arabian cognate is confidently attested for this specific sense. There is no reason to think دوم is a loanword; it behaves as an inherited Semitic root.
Draws on: hebrew-comparison
Quranic exegesisAt 13:35, ukuluhā dāʾim, the exegetes read dāʾim as 'unceasing, uninterrupted' fruit of Paradise, explicitly contrasted with worldly produce that is seasonal and subject to lapse — the word carries forward the lexical sense of something that does not fluctuate or run out.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 13:35, ukuluhā dāʾim, the exegetes read dāʾim as 'unceasing, uninterrupted' fruit of Paradise, explicitly contrasted with worldly produce that is seasonal and subject to lapse — the word carries forward the lexical sense of something that does not fluctuate or run out. At 3:75 and 5:117, mā dumta/dumtu functions as a temporal-conditional hinge ('as long as'), read straightforwardly by al-Ṭabarī as duration of a state (standing guard over a deposit; being present as witness). At 5:24, mā dāmū fīhā (Israel's refusal to enter the land 'as long as' the giants remain) is likewise read as conditioned duration rather than eternal impossibility. At 70:23, ʿalā ṣalātihim dāʾimūn, al-Rāghib's etymological link to sukūn is invoked by commentators to argue that dāʾim here signals an inwardly settled constancy of devotion, not merely outward repetition of the ritual.
Draws on: tabari · razi · raghib · quran
Philosophy & kalāmDawām figures in falsafa debates over the eternity of the world: Avicenna characterizes the cosmos as qadīm and dāʾim al-wujūd, perpetually existent because perpetually caused by an eternal First Cause, so that its dawām is not self-sufficient duration but continuous dependence.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Dawām figures in falsafa debates over the eternity of the world: Avicenna characterizes the cosmos as qadīm and dāʾim al-wujūd, perpetually existent because perpetually caused by an eternal First Cause, so that its dawām is not self-sufficient duration but continuous dependence. The mutakallimūn oppose this with ḥudūth (temporal origination), denying that anything but God can properly be described by unqualified dawām. The term thus becomes a technical marker in the qidam/ḥudūth controversy, distinguishing 'necessary, unbroken duration' from 'duration granted moment by moment.'
Draws on: falsafa-emanation
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, dāma appears in the image of the king's seal upon his treasuries: mā dāma khatmu al-maliki ʿalayhā lā yajsuru aḥad ʿalā fatḥihā illā bi-idhnihi — so long as the seal remains, no one dares open the treasury without permission.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, dāma appears in the image of the king's seal upon his treasuries: mā dāma khatmu al-maliki ʿalayhā lā yajsuru aḥad ʿalā fatḥihā illā bi-idhnihi — so long as the seal remains, no one dares open the treasury without permission. Ibn ʿArabī uses this dāma (temporal-conditional, 'as long as') to explain how God preserves creation through His names as a seal preserves what is sealed: permanence here is figured, exactly as the lexicographers have it, as fixity/sealing rather than ongoing motion. The passage occurs twice in the given excerpts, reinforcing that the durability of the safeguarded order depends on the seal's remaining in place, not on any activity of the sealed things themselves.
Draws on: fass-adam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Illuminationist readingSuhrawardī speaks of the dawām al-fayḍ, the continuous overflow of light from the Light of Lights that sustains the subordinate lights without interruption;plausible
The word in Suhrawardī's philosophy of light.
Suhrawardī speaks of the dawām al-fayḍ, the continuous overflow of light from the Light of Lights that sustains the subordinate lights without interruption; here dawām names not a static endurance but an unceasing act of illumination that never lapses into darkness. This usage keeps the lexical root's stress on unbroken constancy while redirecting it from stillness to perpetual radiance — the light does not 'move' toward the lower lights so much as remain constantly poured out upon them.
Draws on: suhrawardi-emanation
- Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq, on the emanation of lights
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