Root · 5 in the Quran · 29 in 11 texts of the library
ربطa single root meaning binding fast and firmness. (root rbt)
الراء والباء والطاء أصل واحد يدل على شد وثبات
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ر ب ط that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
23 words4 verbs5 verbal nouns6 participles3 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives3 plurals
- رَبَطَhe tied, bound, or made fast, a thing, and a beast
- اِرْتِباطconnection; link
- رَابَطَthe two parties tied their horses at their respective frontiers, each in …
- مَرْبُوطtied; connected
- مُرابِطposted; stationed
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4رَبَطَ · رَابَطَ · اِرْتَبَطَ
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 يَفْعِلُ (a – i; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- رَبَطَhe tied, bound, or made fast, a thing, and a beastLaneForm IQurʾān ×3library ×6Lane
- رَابَطَthe two parties tied their horses at their respective frontiers, each in …LaneForm IIIQurʾān ×1library ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- اِرْتَبَطَLane: see Form IForm VIIIlibrary ×2Lane
- تَرَابَطَthe water remained in, or did not quit, or go forth from, such and such a placeLaneForm VILane
Verbal nouns5اِرْتِباط · رِبَاط · رَبْط
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- اِرْتِباطconnection; linkautoForm VIIIlibrary ×5
- رِبَاطthing with which one ties, binds, or makes fast, a skin, and a beastLaneForm III · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×1LaneIbn Fāris
- رَبْطtying; connectingautoForm I · Lane: inf. n.library ×2Lane
- رِبَاطَةForm I · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- مُرَابَطَةForm III · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles6مَرْبُوط · مُرابِط · رَابِط
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مَرْبُوطtied; connectedautopassive, Form Ilibrary ×3Lane
- مُرابِطposted; stationedautoactive, Form IIIlibrary ×3
- رَابِطactive, Form ILaneIbn Fāris
- مُتَرَابِطwater remaining in a place, not quitting it, or not going forth from itLaneactive, Form VILaneIbn Fāris
Place, time and instrument3مَرْبِط · مِرْبَط · مِرْبَطَة
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2رَبَّاط · رَبِيط
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Plurals3رَوابِط · رُبُط · مَرَابِط
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- رَوابِطbroken plural of رابِطَةlibrary ×1
- رُبُطbroken plural of رِبَاطLane
- مَرَابِطbroken plural of مَرْبِطLane
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 · 170Rabaṭa yarbuṭu rabṭan (ربط يربط ربطا).
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 · 393Rabaṭtu al-shay' arbuṭuhu (ربطت الشيء أربطه), and also arbiṭuhu according to al-Akhfash, meaning "I tied it." The place is called mirbaṭ or marbaṭ (مربط/مربط).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters rā', bā', and ṭā' form one root indicating binding and firmness/steadfastness.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Rabaṭa al-faras (ربط الفرس): to tie the horse in a place to keep it safe;
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 · 711Rabaṭa al-shay' yarbiṭuhu wa-yarbuṭuhu rabṭan (ربط الشيء يربطه ويربطه ربطا) — thus it is marbūṭ (مربوط) or rabīṭ (ربيط): meaning he tied it.
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.
ر ب ط
الراء والباء والطاء أصل واحد يدل على شد وثبات
r-b-ṭ is one root indicating tying and firmness. 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
- رrāʾtip of the tongue, near the nūn · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- بbāʾbetween the lips · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- طṭāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiced, stop, 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
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 ↗
ب
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 ↗
ط
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 ↗
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
ر
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 2582ب
Level of existence: الجن · the jinn
Divine Name: اللطيف · al-Laṭīf, the Subtle
Lunar mansion: الفرع المقدم · al-Farʿ al-Muqaddam
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62118Spheres 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 2582ط
Level of existence: السماء السادسة · the sixth heaven
Divine Name: المحصي · the Enumerator (al-Muḥṣī)
Lunar mansion: الزبانا · al-Zubānā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64680Spheres 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
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.
ب
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي هو في غاية العز أو في غاية الذل.
It is an indication of the thing that is at the utmost of might or at the utmost of abasement.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة معها قبض.
It is an indication accompanied by contraction (qabḍ).
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما دخل أو هو داخل على الذات.
It is an indication of what has entered, or is entering, upon the self.
ط
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي جنسه طاهر وصاف إلى النهاية، وهو في ذاته أيضا طاهر صاف إلى النهاية.
It is an indication of the thing whose genus is pure and clear to the utmost, and which is also, in itself, pure and clear to the utmost.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخبيث إلى النهاية عكس الأول.
It is an indication of what is foul to the utmost, the reverse of the first.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي من طبعه السكون أو أمر بالسكون.
It is an indication of the thing whose nature is stillness, or which has been commanded to be still.
Two-letter nucleus11 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterر ب
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 12394 ↗
- ربتالراء والباء والتاء ليس أصلا لكنه من باب الإبدالL12395
- ربحالراء والباء والحاء أصل واحد يدل على شف في مبايعةQ 1 · L12405
- ربخالراء والباء والخاء أصيل يدل على فترة واسترخاءL12411
- ربدالراء والباء والدال أصلان أحدهما لون من الألوان والآخر الإقامةL12413
- ربسالراء والباء والسين أصل واحد ذكره ابن دريدL12434
- ربصالراء والباء والصاد أصل واحد يدل على الانتظارQ 17 · L12439
- ربطالراء والباء والطاء أصل واحد يدل على شد وثباتQ 5 · L12455
- ربعالراء والباء والعين أصول ثلاثة أحدها جزء من أربعة أشياء والآخر الإقامة والثالث الإشالة والرفع فأما الأول فالربع من الشيءQ 22 · L12469
- ربقالراء والباء والقاف أصل واحد وهو شيء يدور بشيء كالقلادة في العنق ثم يتفرع فالربقة الخيط في العنق وفي كلامهم ربدت الضأن فربق ربق إذا أضرع الشاء فهيء الL12500
- ربلالراء والباء واللام أصل واحد يدل على تجمع وكثرة في انضمامL12510
- ربىأالراء والباء والحرف المعتل وكذلك المهموز منه يدل على أصل واحد وهو الزيادة والنماء والعلو تقولL12521
In the sister scriptsHebrew ר ב טSyriac ܪ ܒ ܛ
| Arabic | ر ب ط |
| Hebrew | ר ב ט |
| Syriac | ܪ ܒ ܛ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩧 𐩨 𐩷 |
| Phoenician | 𐤓 𐤁 𐤈 |
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 gives rabaṭa and defines ribāṭ as the thing tied with and as holding the enemy's frontier;well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives rabaṭa and defines ribāṭ as the thing tied with and as holding the enemy's frontier; he reads Q 3:200 either as ribāṭ of jihād or as keeping the five prayers at their times. He also records ribāṭ as persistence in a thing and rābiṭ al-jaʾsh as one whose heart holds firm in fear. Al-Jawharī glosses the verb as shadadtuhu, gives marbaṭ, rabīṭ (a horse that is kept), the cord of a waterskin or beast, and a gazelle's snare, and he adds ribāṭ as a built lodge (pl. ribāṭāt). Ibn Fāris reduces all of this to shadd wa-thabāt, explaining frontier-holding 'as if they were tied there and stood firm'. Al-Rāghib moves the sense inward: murābaṭa is guarding, of the frontiers and also of the body by the soul, supported by the report that waiting for one prayer after another is ribāṭ. Ibn Manẓūr adds morphological detail such as marbaṭ/mirbaṭ, and Lane gives 'he tied, bound, made fast', with irtabaṭa for tying a beast so it does not run off.
Draws on: al-Khalīl · al-Jawharī · Ibn Fāris · al-Rāghib · Ibn Manẓūr · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root ر ب ط ↗
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha, s.v. ربط
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. ربط
Letters & soundIn the correspondence data supplied, Ibn ʿArabī links rāʾ with the Fifth Heaven and ṭāʾ with the Sixth, and gives nothing for bāʾ.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the correspondence data supplied, Ibn ʿArabī links rāʾ with the Fifth Heaven and ṭāʾ with the Sixth, and gives nothing for bāʾ. Al-Dabbāgh reads rāʾ as indicating all goods outward and inward, bāʾ as a thing at the utmost of might or abasement, and ṭāʾ as a thing pure and clear to the utmost in genus and in itself. A reader following Ibn Jinnī's imsās might hear the closing emphatic ṭāʾ as the pulled knot, but this is an association and not his analysis of the root. Mainstream linguistics treats such readings as suggestive at most.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letter–sphere correspondences · al-Dabbāgh
- Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, ch. 198 (letters and the Breath)
- al-Ibrīz (sayings of al-Dabbāgh)
Root structureIbn Fāris's r-b siblings include rabaṣa (waiting), rabada and rabaʿa (each with a sense of staying in a place), rabaqa (a thing encircling another, like a noose on the neck) and rabala (gathering and packing together).plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's r-b siblings include rabaṣa (waiting), rabada and rabaʿa (each with a sense of staying in a place), rabaqa (a thing encircling another, like a noose on the neck) and rabala (gathering and packing together). Several of these sit near the tethering and staying of rabaṭa, and this is offered only as juxtaposition. The attested permutations point elsewhere: r-ṭ-b (the opposite of dryness), b-ṭ-r (splitting, with the Qurʾānic baṭira, 'exultant insolence'), and ṭ-r-b (a lightness from joy or grief); b-r-ṭ and ṭ-b-r are attested but without an Ibn Fāris definition here. Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation does not fit this set. The doubled root r-b-b (rabb) belongs to a separate chapter and is not among these siblings.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris r-b chapter · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, bāb al-rāʾ wa-l-bāʾ
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate of r-b-ṭ in Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian is known to me, and the word is not a loan into Arabic.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate of r-b-ṭ in Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian is known to me, and the word is not a loan into Arabic. The borrowing runs the other way. Ribāṭ lies behind the place name Rabat and Spanish rábida, and murābiṭ lies behind 'Almoravid' and French 'marabout'.
Draws on: no confident cognate · Arabic > Romance borrowings
Quranic exegesisRabaṭnā ʿalā qulūbihim (Q 18:14, of the Sleepers;plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Rabaṭnā ʿalā qulūbihim (Q 18:14, of the Sleepers; also Q 28:10, of Moses' mother) is read by the exegetes as God strengthening the heart and making it steadfast, the same sense as rābiṭ al-jaʾsh. In Q 8:11 the rain at Badr is sent to 'bind' the hearts and to make the feet firm on sandy ground. For rābiṭū in Q 3:200, al-Ṭabarī reports both the frontier sense and the waiting for one prayer after another. Al-Rāghib's inner reading makes the soul the guardian stationed at the frontier of the body. Ribāṭ al-khayl (Q 8:60) is taken as horses tethered and kept ready for war, to strike fear into the enemy.
Philosophy & kalāmIn Arabic logic rābiṭa is the technical term for the copula that joins subject and predicate.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In Arabic logic rābiṭa is the technical term for the copula that joins subject and predicate. Al-Fārābī and Avicenna discuss how Arabic, which usually leaves the copula unexpressed, can supply it with huwa or a form of wujūd; Avicenna uses this in distinguishing binary from ternary propositions. Rabṭ and irtibāṭ also name the problem of how the temporally originated is linked to the eternal (rabṭ al-ḥādith bi-l-qadīm). That problem is central to al-Ghazālī's debate with the philosophers in the Tahāfut.
Draws on: Arabic logic · al-Fārābī · Avicenna · al-Ghazālī
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam the eighth-form irtibāṭ names the bond between intelligible universals, which have no concrete existence, and concrete existents, whose properties those universals govern.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam the eighth-form irtibāṭ names the bond between intelligible universals, which have no concrete existence, and concrete existents, whose properties those universals govern. The chapter argues that if a bond can hold between what has concrete existence and what does not, then the bond of existents with one another is easier still to conceive. Such relations (nisab) are non-existential, yet a common factor always joins the related terms. This relational reasoning prepares the chapter's account of how the Real and the world are linked. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition is supplied for the root.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
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