Root · 167 in the Quran · 162 in 23 texts of the library
سوأIbn Fāris's own gloss for this root is not among the excerpts given; the sense attested … (root sw)
English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of س و أ that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
22 words4 verbs4 verbal nouns1 participle2 intensives and elatives8 other nouns3 plurals
- سُوءevilness, badness, abominableness, foulness, or unseemliness
- سَاءَevil, , is it as a way of acting
- سَيِّئَةevil act or action
- سَوْءman of evil nature or doings
- أَسَاءَhe did evil, or ill
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4سَاءَ · أَسَاءَ · سَوَّأ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- سَاءَevil, , is it as a way of actingLaneForm IQurʾān ×30Lane
- أَسَاءَhe did evil, or illLaneForm IVQurʾān ×5library ×2Lane
- سَوَّأhe corrupted, or marredLaneForm IIlibrary ×3Lane
- استاءhe experienced evil, or that which he disliked or hated, or displeasure, or …LaneForm VIIILane
Verbal nouns4سَوْء · اِسْتِواء · تَسْوِئَة
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- سَوْءman of evil nature or doingsLaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×9Lane
- اِسْتِواءequatorautoForm VIIIlibrary ×6
- تَسْوِئَةForm II · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- تَسْوِىْءForm II · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles1مُسِىء
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُسِىءactive, Form IVQurʾān ×1
Intensives, qualities and the elative2أَسْوَأ · سَوْآن
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns8سُوء · سَيِّئَة · سَوْاء
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- سُوءevilness, badness, abominableness, foulness, or unseemlinessLanenounQurʾān ×50library ×16Lane
- سَيِّئَةevil act or actionLanenounQurʾān ×22Lane
- سَوْاءexcept; whetherautonounlibrary ×12Lane
- سَيِّئnounQurʾān ×4Lane
Plurals3سَوْءَات · أَسْوَاء · سَوْآت
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- سَوْءَاتsound plural of سَوْءَةQurʾān ×5
- أَسْوَاءbroken plural of سُوءlibrary ×1Lane
- سَوْآتbroken plural of سَوْءَةLane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 12 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-sayyi' (السيء), on the pattern of al-shay' (الشيء): the small amount of milk before the abundant milk (al-darra) descends.
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-sayyi' (السيّئ), with fatḥa: the milk that is at the tips of the teats before the abundant milk (al-darra) descends.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-sū' (السوء): everything that grieves a person, whether of worldly or otherworldly matters, or of psychological, bodily, or external states — such as the loss of wealth or status, or the loss of a loved one.
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-sayyi' and al-sī' (السيء والسيء): the milk before the abundant flow (al-darra) descends, found at the tip of the teats.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
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
- سsīntongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- أhamzadeep in the throat · voiced, 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
س
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
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 ↗
أ
فأقصاها مخرجا: الهمزة والهاء والألف
The furthest of them [the three in the throat] in place: the hamza, the hāʾ and the alif. Sībawayh, line 26548 ↗
فأولها من أسفله وأقصاه، مخرج الهمزة والألف والهاء، هكذا يقول سيبويه
The first of them [in the throat], from its lowest and furthest part, is the place of the hamza, the alif and the hāʾ: so Sībawayh says. Ibn Jinnī, line 965 ↗
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
س
Level of existence: ما ظهر في الماء · what appears in water
Divine Name: المحيي · al-Muḥyī, the Life-Giver
Lunar mansion: النعائم · al-Naʿāʾim
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62110Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
السين والشين فطبعهما الحرارة واليبوسة
Sīn and shīn: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2581و
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 2582أ
Nature (ch. 2)
وإلا الهاء والهمزة فإنهما باردتان رطبتان
And except hāʾ and hamza, for these two are cold and moist.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2583Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
س
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء المليح الذي من طبعه الرقة.
It is an indication of the comely thing whose nature is delicacy.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القبيح الخشن، أو إشارة إلى سواد حسا ومعنى.
It is an indication of the ugly, rough thing, or of blackness, sensible and figurative.
With kasra ـِ
وبالكسر إشارة إلى الشيء الطابع وتكون الإشارة منه.
With kasra it is an indication of the impressing/stamping thing, and the indication proceeds from 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.
أ
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الأشياء قلت أو كثرت، وتكون الإشارة في بعض الأحيان من المتكلم إلى ذاته ونفسه، وهذه الإشارة سالمة من القبض.
It is an indication of all things, whether few or many. At times the indication is from the speaker to his own essence and self, and this indication is free of contraction (qabḍ).
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب القليل.
It is an indication of the near, small thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القريب المناسب.
It is an indication of the near, fitting (congruent) thing.
Two-letter nucleus11 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterس 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 14250 ↗
- سوىالسين والواو والياء أصل يدل على استقامة واعتدال بين شيئينQ 83 · L14251
- سوخالسين والواو والخاء كلمة واحدةL14276
- سودالسين والواو والدال أصل واحد وهو خلاف البياض في اللون ثم يحمل عليه ويشتق منه فالسواد في اللون معروف وعند قوم أن كل شيء خالف البياض أي لون كان فهو في حQ 10 · L14278
- سورالسين والواو والراء أصل واحد يدل على علو وارتفاعQ 17 · L14292
- سوطالسين والواو والطاء أصل يدل على مخالطة الشىء الشىءQ 1 · L14299
- سوعالسين والواو والعين يدل على استمرار الشيء ومضيهQ 49 · L14305
- سوقالسين والواو والقاف أصل واحد وهو حدو الشيءQ 17 · L14324
- سوكالسين والواو والكاف أصل واحد يدل على حركة واضطرابL14331
- سولالسين والواو واللام أصل يدل على استرخاء في شيءQ 4 · L14336
- سومالسين والواو والميم أصل يدل على طلب الشيءQ 15 · L14340
- سوسالسين والواو والسين أصلان أحدهما فساد في شيء والآخر جبلة وخليقةL14347
In the sister scriptsHebrew ס/ש ו אSyriac ܣ/ܫ ܘ ܐ
| Arabic | س و أ |
| Hebrew | ס/ש ו א |
| Syriac | ܣ/ܫ ܘ ܐ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩯/𐩦 𐩥 𐩱 |
| Phoenician | 𐤎/𐤔 𐤅 𐤀 |
Letter for letter, by the regular sound correspondences of the Semitic languages (Arabic keeps several sounds the others merged). This shows how the root would be spelled; whether a related word exists is a separate question, answered in the Semitic lens. Where an Arabic sibilant (s, sh) continues two older sounds, both spellings are shown.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconThe earliest citations (al-Khalīl's ʿAyn, al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ) preserve a narrow pastoral sense: al-sīʾ/al-sayyiʾ is the milk that flows from a she-camel's teats before the fuller milk (al-durra) descends, illustrated by Zuhayr's line about coaxing this thin foremilk from a frightened animal;well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
The earliest citations (al-Khalīl's ʿAyn, al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ) preserve a narrow pastoral sense: al-sīʾ/al-sayyiʾ is the milk that flows from a she-camel's teats before the fuller milk (al-durra) descends, illustrated by Zuhayr's line about coaxing this thin foremilk from a frightened animal; al-Jawharī adds tasayyaʾat (she released milk unmilked) and insāʾa (of milk let down). Ibn Fāris's own gloss for this root is not among these excerpts, but by al-Rāghib's Mufradāt the center has shifted to the ethical-religious sense: al-sūʾ as everything that grieves a person, worldly or otherworldly, of soul, body, or circumstance; he glosses 'min ghayri sūʾ' (Q20:22) as free of blemish (some say leprosy), and sets sayyiʾa/sūʾā against ḥasana/ḥusnā (Q30:10, 10:26). Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān largely repeats the earlier pastoral citation material and adds a Hadith gloss (via Ibn al-Athīr) linking siyāʾ to a coffin-seller who wishes people dead. Two strands thus survive side by side: a technical pastoral usage kept mainly as citation, and the broad moral sense that carries almost the entire Qurʾānic load, first fully theorized by al-Rāghib.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab
Letters & soundUnder this letter-scheme س marks 'what appears in the water' and و marks 'the fixing of ranks, stations, and waystations';speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Under this letter-scheme س marks 'what appears in the water' and و marks 'the fixing of ranks, stations, and waystations'; al-Dabbāgh reads fatḥa-س as the delicate, comely thing, and fatḥa-و as the intertwined things within a human being (veins, fingers). These associations sit uneasily with sūʾ as harm or ugliness - if anything they better suit the sibling root سوي (rectitude, levelling) - and no letter-value is supplied here for the closing hamza. This is exactly the kind of case where sound-symbolism readings should be held loosely: mainstream historical linguistics treats such letter-meaning tables as later, exegetically motivated impositions rather than evidence of how the root sense arose.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (al-imsās chapter) (link not verified)
Root structureIbn Fāris's own gloss for سوأ is not given, but its nucleus siblings in س-و- form a coherent family: sawiya = rectitude and equilibrium between two things, sawada = blackness, sawara = loftiness, sawaṭa = intermixture, sawaʿa = continuance, sawaqa = driving, sawaka = agitation, sawala = slackness, sawama = seeking.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's own gloss for سوأ is not given, but its nucleus siblings in س-و- form a coherent family: sawiya = rectitude and equilibrium between two things, sawada = blackness, sawara = loftiness, sawaṭa = intermixture, sawaʿa = continuance, sawaqa = driving, sawaka = agitation, sawala = slackness, sawama = seeking. If sawiya names equilibrium between two things, سوأ - the same س-و nucleus closed by hamza - can be read, by juxtaposition only, as its rupture: loss of that balance. More striking is the greater-derivation cluster on the same three letters: أسو, a single root meaning healing and setting-right (medicine for a wound), and أوس, a single root meaning gift or compensation ('asta al-rajul aʾūsuhu' = I gave him). سوأ / أسو / أوس thus juxtapose harm, remedy, and gift on identical consonants - a pattern Ibn Jinnī's al-ishtiqāq al-akbar would flag as suggestive, not as an established derivation.
Draws on: nucleusSiblings · permutations · ibnJinni
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, s.v. أسو / أوس
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix, س و أ (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew שָׁוְא (shāwʾ) - emptiness, vanity, falsehood, worthlessness, as in the Third Commandment's 'lō tiśśā...plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew שָׁוְא (shāwʾ) - emptiness, vanity, falsehood, worthlessness, as in the Third Commandment's 'lō tiśśā... lashāwʾ' - is a plausible cognate: Proto-Semitic *š regularly corresponds to Hebrew š and Arabic s, and both roots converge on a negative-value sense (worthless/harmful) rather than a concrete image. No confident Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Gəʿez cognate is available here. There is no reason to think Arabic سوء is a loanword; the root's full native morphology (verbal noun, elative, feminine forms) points to inherited vocabulary.
Draws on: hebrew
- Brown–Driver–Briggs, Hebrew Lexicon, s.v. שוא
Quranic exegesisThe 167 occurrences split along the two senses visible in the lexicographers.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
The 167 occurrences split along the two senses visible in the lexicographers. Sayyiʾāt/sayyiʾa as culpable deeds dominate ethical-legal contexts (Q2:271, 3:193), read by al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī within debates over the erasure of sins by good deeds and repentance. Sūʾ as harm or affliction appears in Q2:49 ('yasūmūnakum sūʾa al-ʿadhāb') and structures the reciprocity of Q3:120 (a ḥasana that grieves the hostile party, a sayyiʾa that gladdens them). The plural sawʾāt - 'their shameful parts' becoming visible to Adam and Eve (Q7:20-22, 20:121) - is read by al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī as the exposure that follows the Fall; al-Rāghib's Mufradāt remains the semantic anchor exegetes draw on across these registers.
Draws on: tabari · zamakhshari · razi · raghib
Philosophy & kalāmSūʾ/sayyiʾa is not a fixed falsafa term, but the sayyiʾa/ḥasana pair sits inside the kalām dispute over the creation of acts (khalq al-afʿāl): Ashʿarites hold that God creates the sayyiʾa as He creates the ḥasana, the human merely 'acquiring' (kasb) it, while Muʿtazilites hold that humans originate their own evil acts.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Sūʾ/sayyiʾa is not a fixed falsafa term, but the sayyiʾa/ḥasana pair sits inside the kalām dispute over the creation of acts (khalq al-afʿāl): Ashʿarites hold that God creates the sayyiʾa as He creates the ḥasana, the human merely 'acquiring' (kasb) it, while Muʿtazilites hold that humans originate their own evil acts. This is a standing theodicy problem attached to verses such as Q4:79 ('mā aṣābaka min sayyiʾatin fa-min nafsik').
Draws on: kalam
Akbarian readingNeither Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt given here actually uses سوأ;plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Neither Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt given here actually uses سوأ; both use the nucleus-sibling سوي - sawwā (to level, proportion) and sawāʾ (equal, indifferent-as-to). The first passage calls Adam's unensouled clay-form 'like an unpolished mirror,' and states that God never levels (sawwā) a locus without it becoming receptive to a divine spirit - a levelling that removes the locus's defect and prepares it for the breath. This is worth flagging: sūʾ as blemish (compare al-Rāghib's gloss of Q20:22, 'without sūʾ' = without blemish) is conceptually the condition sawwā corrects, though the two roots are formally distinct. No excerpt given deploys سوأ's ethical sense (sayyiʾa) within Faṣṣ Ādam.
Draws on: fassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādamī
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