Root · 0 in the Quran · 8 in 5 texts of the library
شبحextension of a thing in breadth (root shbh)
الشين والباء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على امتداد الشيء في عرض
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ش ب ح that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
14 words2 verbs3 verbal nouns2 participles1 intensive or elative5 other nouns1 plural
- شَبَحbody, or bodily form, appeared, loomed, or gleamed, to me
- أَشْبَاح—
- مَشْبُوحwide between the shoulders
- مُشَّبَحstrong, or stout
- شَبْحَةrafter, or timber, of the ceiling, or roof, of a house
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs2شَبُحَ · شَبَّحَ
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: فَعُلَ يَفْعَلُ (u – a; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
Verbal nouns3شَبْح · تَشْبِيح · شَبَاحَة
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles2مَشْبُوح · مُشَّبَح
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative1شَبْحَان
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- شَبْحَانintensive (faʿlān)Lane
Other nouns5شَبَح · شَبَحَة · شَبِيحَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals1أَشْبَاح
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- أَشْبَاحbroken plural of شَبَحlibrary ×4Lane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 9 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-shabaḥ (الشبح) is that whose form appears to you among created beings.
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-shabaḥ (الشبح) is the shakhṣ (الشخص, figure/form), and it may also be vocalized with sukūn [shabḥ].
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Shīn, bāʾ, and ḥāʾ form a sound root indicating the extension of a thing in breadth.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Al-shabaḥ (الشبح) is that whose form appears to you among people and other created beings.
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.
ش ب ح
الشين والباء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على امتداد الشيء في عرض
sh-b-ḥ: a sound root indicating the extension of something in width. 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
- شshīnmiddle of the tongue · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- بbāʾbetween the lips · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- حḥāʾmiddle of the throat · voiceless, continuantSīb. · 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
ش
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26553 ↗
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى، مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 974 ↗
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 ↗
ح
ومن أوسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26548–26549 ↗
ومن وسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 970 ↗
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
ش
Level of existence: فلك الكواكب الثابتة والجنات · the sphere of the fixed stars and the Gardens
Divine Name: المقدر · al-Muqaddir, the Determiner
Lunar mansion: الجبهة · al-Jabha
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62087Spheres 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 2581ب
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 2582ح
Level of existence: الجوهر الهبابي · the dust-like substance (spelled الهبابي in the text)
Divine Name: الآخر · al-Ākhir, the Last
Lunar mansion: الدبران · al-Dabarān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62076Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ش
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الرحمة التي لا يعقبها عذاب، وتكون إشارة إلى من خرجت منه النقمة ودخلت عليه الرحمة وتظهر.
It is an indication of mercy that is not followed by punishment. It also indicates one from whom vengeance has departed and upon whom mercy has entered and becomes manifest.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى عال في نفسه مع التعظيم.
It is an indication of something lofty in itself, with veneration.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي من طبعه الستر، وقد تكون الإشارة إلى ما هو مستور في القلب وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the thing whose nature is concealment; the indication may be to what is concealed in the heart and the like.
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.
ح
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي تدل على الإحاطة والشمول للجميع.
It denotes encompassing and inclusion of everything.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العدد الكثير الخارج عن بني آدم كالنجوم.
It is a great number external to the children of Adam, such as the stars.
With kasra ـِ
فهي العدد الداخل في الذات أو للذات عليه ولاية كملكية العبيد والدنانير والدراهم وغير ذلك.
It is a number contained within the self, or over which the self has authority, such as ownership of slaves, dinars, dirhams and the like.
In the sister scriptsHebrew ש ב חSyriac ܣ ܒ ܚ
| Arabic | ش ب ح |
| Hebrew | ש ב ח |
| Syriac | ܣ ܒ ܚ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩦/𐩪 𐩨 𐩢 |
| Phoenician | 𐤔 𐤁 𐤇 |
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's entry starts from visual apprehension: shabaḥ is 'what appears to you of a person's or creature's shakhṣ (form/figure)' — an apparition one glimpses, tied to the verb shabbaha, 'to resemble.' Al-Jawharī develops a physical-bodily sense: shabaḥ/shabḥ as shakhṣ, shabaḥān 'tall,' mashbūḥ al-dhirāʿayn 'broad in the forearms,' and the chameleon (ḥirbāʾ) said to yashbaḥu ʿalā al-ʿūd, 'stretch itself along the branch.' Ibn Fāris supplies the unifying core Lane and the Lisān inherit: 'extension of a thing in breadth' — the shabaḥ is a shakhṣ precisely because it has spatial extension and breadth, and the same root covers stretching a hide between pegs or a man between posts for flogging, and stretching out one's arms (shabaḥa dhirāʿayhi) in supplication.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl's entry starts from visual apprehension: shabaḥ is 'what appears to you of a person's or creature's shakhṣ (form/figure)' — an apparition one glimpses, tied to the verb shabbaha, 'to resemble.' Al-Jawharī develops a physical-bodily sense: shabaḥ/shabḥ as shakhṣ, shabaḥān 'tall,' mashbūḥ al-dhirāʿayn 'broad in the forearms,' and the chameleon (ḥirbāʾ) said to yashbaḥu ʿalā al-ʿūd, 'stretch itself along the branch.' Ibn Fāris supplies the unifying core Lane and the Lisān inherit: 'extension of a thing in breadth' — the shabaḥ is a shakhṣ precisely because it has spatial extension and breadth, and the same root covers stretching a hide between pegs or a man between posts for flogging, and stretching out one's arms (shabaḥa dhirāʿayhi) in supplication. Al-Rāghib's Mufradāt is not attested for this root in the excerpts available.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Lisān al-ʿArab · Lane
Letters & soundIbn ʿArabī associates shīn with the sphere of the fixed stars and the Gardens, and al-Dabbāgh with mercy no longer followed by punishment;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Ibn ʿArabī associates shīn with the sphere of the fixed stars and the Gardens, and al-Dabbāgh with mercy no longer followed by punishment; bāʾ is tied to the jinn, or (al-Dabbāgh) to the extremity of might or abasement; ḥāʾ is tied by Ibn ʿArabī to al-jawhar al-habāʾī, the dust-like primal substance, and by al-Dabbāgh to that which encompasses and includes everything. Read speculatively, this gives a striking resonance with the akbarian use of shabaḥ below: a shabaḥ is precisely a form impressed upon the habāʾ (dust-substance, ḥāʾ) before it receives spirit — an unensouled extension awaiting the mercy (shīn) that will animate it. This is offered only as a resonance internal to this symbolic system, not a linguistic claim; mainstream philology gives it no evidentiary weight.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī letters-in-the-Breath (akbari198) · al-Dabbāgh fatḥa meanings
Root structureNo sibling roots under the shīn-bāʾ nucleus are supplied in the source material, so no comparison to Ibn Fāris's chapter neighbors can be made here.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
No sibling roots under the shīn-bāʾ nucleus are supplied in the source material, so no comparison to Ibn Fāris's chapter neighbors can be made here. Among the letter-permutations, shbḥ (extension/breadth) is joined by ḥshb (attested, of a man 'great and fat-bellied,' ḥawshab) and ḥbsh (attested, 'gathering,' the aḥābīsh being groups assembled from scattered tribes), while shḥb, bshḥ, and bḥsh carry no recorded sense. One might juxtapose ḥshb's bodily bulk with shbḥ's bodily extension as cognate images of largeness, and even stretch toward ḥbsh's 'gathering into a mass,' but Ibn Fāris does not assert any such unity, and Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation is not invoked for this root in the given sources — this remains speculative juxtaposition only.
Draws on: Maqāyīs chapter shīn-bāʾ · permutation table
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew שָׁבַח shābaḥ and Aramaic/Syriac ܫܒܚ shabbaḥ mean 'to praise, extol' (also 'to still, calm' in some stems) — the same three root letters as Arabic shbḥ but a plainly different semantic field (praise/calming vs.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew שָׁבַח shābaḥ and Aramaic/Syriac ܫܒܚ shabbaḥ mean 'to praise, extol' (also 'to still, calm' in some stems) — the same three root letters as Arabic shbḥ but a plainly different semantic field (praise/calming vs. shape/extension). No confident cognate for the Arabic sense of 'figure, apparition, extension' is attested in these languages; the shared consonants most likely reflect coincidental triliteral overlap (a false friend) rather than a genuine cognate relationship, and no evidence supports treating the Arabic root as a loanword.
Draws on: Hebrew š-b-ḥ · Aramaic/Syriac š-b-ḥ
Akbarian readingNo formal Iṣṭilāḥ entry for shabaḥ is preserved among Ibn ʿArabī's given definitions, but the term does decisive work in Faṣṣ Ādam: God is said to have brought the entire cosmos into existence 'as a leveled shabaḥ with no spirit in it, like an unpolished mirror' — a proportioned form awaiting the ensoulment and polishing that comes with the Adamic spirit.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
No formal Iṣṭilāḥ entry for shabaḥ is preserved among Ibn ʿArabī's given definitions, but the term does decisive work in Faṣṣ Ādam: God is said to have brought the entire cosmos into existence 'as a leveled shabaḥ with no spirit in it, like an unpolished mirror' — a proportioned form awaiting the ensoulment and polishing that comes with the Adamic spirit. Here shabaḥ names the cosmos in its condition of bare, unensouled extension, the counterpart-state to the ruling divine ḥukm that then breathes spirit into it; it is body without the completing act of spirit, form without the mirror's capacity yet to reflect. The image sets up the entire chapter's argument that Adam's creation as the 'polishing' of this cosmic shabaḥ is what completes the mirror of existence.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam
Illuminationist readingIn Suhrawardī's illuminationist ontology, ashbāḥ (sing.plausible
The word in Suhrawardī's philosophy of light.
In Suhrawardī's illuminationist ontology, ashbāḥ (sing. shabaḥ) names the dark, non-luminous bodies or barrier-substrates (barāzikh) through which or upon which light (nūr) acts — opaque isthmus-bodies contrasted with the self-subsistent lights (anwār qāhira/mudabbira). The choice of this root for 'opaque barrier' draws directly on the classical sense of shabaḥ as extended bodily bulk (Ibn Fāris's imtidād fī ʿarḍ): what has breadth and extension is, for Suhrawardī, precisely what blocks or receives light rather than being light itself. This is a genuine and load-bearing technical usage within the Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq system, distinct from the root's ordinary lexical sense of 'figure, apparition.'
Draws on: Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq
Reference