Root · 49 in the Quran · 324 in 22 texts of the library
عقلPer Ibn Fāris, a single regular root denoting confinement or holding back in a thing, or … (root ql)
العين والقاف واللام أصل واحد منقاس مطرد يدل عظمه على حبسة في الشيء أو ما يقارب الحبسة
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ع ق ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
42 words8 verbs6 verbal nouns2 participles2 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives10 other nouns7 plurals5 relatives and abstracts
- عَقَلُ—
- عَقْلthe blood of such a one became the occasion of a debt incumbent on his …
- مَعْقُولplausible; logical
- عَقْلِيَّةmentality; attitude
- عُقُول—
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs8عَقَلُ · عَقَّلَ · عَاقَلَ
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.”)
- عَقَلُForm IQurʾān ×49library ×19LaneIbn Fāris
- عَقَّلَmake reasonableauto · Lane: see Form IForm IIlibrary ×2LaneIbn Fāris
- عَاقَلَForm IIILaneIbn Fāris
- أَعْقَلَForm IVLaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns6عَقْل · عِقَال · عَقَل
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- عَقْلthe blood of such a one became the occasion of a debt incumbent on his …LaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.library ×81LaneIbn Fāris
- عِقَالrope with which a camel's fore shank is bound to his arm, both being folded …LaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.library ×4LaneIbn Fāris
- عَقَلForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
- عُقُولForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
Participles2مَعْقُول · عَاقِل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مَعْقُولplausible; logicalautopassive, Form Ilibrary ×22LaneIbn Fāris
- عَاقِلrational; reasonableautoactive, Form Ilibrary ×12LaneIbn Fāris
Place, time and instrument2مَعْقُلَة · مَعْقِل
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2أَعْقَل · عَقُول
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns10عَاقُول · عَقَنْقَل · عَقِيلَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals7عُقُول · عُقَلاء · عَقَائِل
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- عُقُولbroken plural of عَقْلlibrary ×14Ibn Fāris
- عُقَلاءbroken plural of عاقِلlibrary ×3Ibn Fāris
- عَقَائِلbroken plural of عَقِيلَةLaneIbn Fāris
- عَقَاقِيلbroken plural of عَقَنْقَلLaneIbn Fāris
Relative and abstract5عَقْلِيَّة · عَقْلِيّ · عُقَيْلِيَّة
-iyy relates a thing to its source; -iyya makes an abstract noun.grammar →
- عَقْلِيَّةmentality; attitudeautoabstract noun (-iyya)library ×17
- عَقْلِيّmental; intellectualautorelative adjective (-iyy)library ×12Lane
- عُقَيْلِيَّةcertain hardy, excellent, highly esteemed, camels, of NejdLaneabstract noun (-iyya)Lane
- مَعْقُولِيَّةplausibility; reasonablenessautoabstract noun (-iyya)library ×1
- مَعْقِلِيّcertain sort of dates, or fresh ripe dates, of El-BasrahLanerelative adjective (-iyy)Lane
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: مَعْقُلَة, noun of place (with -a) (Lane, Ibn Fāris)
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-ʿaql (العقل) is the opposite of ignorance (jahl).
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-ʿaql (العقل) means restraint/prevention (ḥijr) and reason (nuhā).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395ʿAyn (ع), qāf (ق), and lām (ل) form one qiyāsī (regularly derived) and consistent root indicating, in its main sense, a holding-back (ḥabsa) in a thing, or something close to a holding-back — this is al-ʿaql (العقل), whi
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502...and al-muʿāqara (المعاقرة) means habitual drinking of it [wine].
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-ʿaql (العقل) means restraint (ḥijr) and reason (nuhā), the opposite of foolishness (ḥumq), plural ʿuqūl (عقول).
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLane · 1876English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
E. W. Lane (d. 1876), An Arabic-English Lexicon. English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
Lane, Arabic-English Lexiconread Lane's entry online ↗
Technical definitions8 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
ذو العقل
هو الذي يرى الخلق ظاهرا ويرى الحق باطنا، فيكون الحق عنده مرآة الخلق، لاحتجاب المرآة بالصور الظاهرة.
Dhū al-ʿaql (ذو العقل — 'the possessor of intellect') is he who sees creation (khalq) as the outward apparent thing and sees the Real (ḥaqq) as the inward hidden thing, so that for him the Real becomes the mirror of creation, since the mirror is veiled by the outward forms [reflected in it]. AI
ذو العقل والعين
هو الذي يرى الحق في الخلق، وهذا قرب النوافل، ويرى الخلق في الحق، وهذا قرب الفرائض، ولا يحتجب بأحدهما عن الآخر، بل يرى الوجود الواحد بعينه حقا من وجه، وخلقا من وجه، فلا يحتجب بالكثرة عن شهود الواحد الرائي، ولا تزاحم في شهود الكثرة الخلقية، وكذا لا تزاحم في شهود أحدية الذات المتجلية في المجالي كثرة، وإلى المراتب الثلاثة أشار الشيخ محي الدين بن العربي -قدس الله سره- بقوله: وفي الخلق عين الحق إن كنت ذا عين ... وفي الحق عين الخلق إن كنت ذا عقل وإن كنت ذا عين وعقل فما ترى ... سوى عين شيء واحد فيه بالشكل
Dhū al-ʿaql wa-l-ʿayn (ذو العقل والعين — 'the possessor of intellect and direct vision') is he who sees the Real within creation — and this is the nearness of supererogatory works (qurb al-nawāfil) — and sees creation within the Real — and this is the nearness of obligatory works (qurb al-farāʾiḍ) — without being veiled by either of the two from the other; rather he sees the one selfsame existence as being the Real from one perspective and creation from another perspective, so he is not veiled by multiplicity from the witnessing of the witnessing One, nor is there any conflict in the witnessing of the multiplicity of creation; and likewise there is no conflict in the witnessing of the oneness of the Essence as it manifests itself in the multiple loci of manifestation. It is to these three ranks that Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn al-ʿArabī (may God sanctify his innermost secret) alluded when he said: "And in creation is the very essence of the Real, if you have an eye [of direct vision]; and in the Real is the very essence of creation, if you have intellect (ʿaql). But if you have both eye and intellect, then you see nothing but the essence of one single thing, in it by way of form." AI
العاقلة
أهل ديوان لمن هو منهم وقبيله، يحميه ممن ليس منهم.
Al-ʿāqila (العاقلة) is the members of a register [i.e., of those liable for blood-money] belonging to whoever is one of them and one of his clan, who protect him against those who are not of them. AI
العقل
هو حذف الحرف الخامس المتحرك من "مفاعلتن"، وهي اللام، ليبقى: "مفاعلتن"، فينقل إلى "مفاعلن"، ويسمى: معقولا.
Al-ʿaql (العقل — in prosody) is the dropping of the fifth moving letter from [the metrical foot] 'mafāʿilatun' (مفاعلتن), which is the lām, leaving 'mafāʿilatun' [reduced] and transposed into 'mafāʿilun' (مفاعلن); [the resulting foot] is called maʿqūl (معقول). AI
العقل
جوهر مجرد عن المادة في ذاته، مقارن لها في فعله، وهي النفس الناطقة التي يشير إليها كل أحد بقوله: أنا، وقيل: العقل: جوهر روحاني خلقه الله تعالى متعلقا ببدن الإنسان، وقيل: العقل: نور في القلب يعرف الحق والباطل، وقيل: العقل: جوهر مجرد عن المادة يتعلق بالبدن تعلق التدبير
Al-ʿaql (العقل — 'the intellect') is a substance immaterial in its essence, [yet] conjoined with matter in its action; it is the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqa) to which every person refers by saying 'I' (anā). It is also said: al-ʿaql is a spiritual substance which God, Exalted, created attached to the human body. It is also said: al-ʿaql is a light in the heart by which truth and falsehood are known. It is also said: al-ʿaql is a substance immaterial [in itself] which attaches to the body in the manner of governance/management [rather than inherence]. AI
العقل
ما يعقل به حقائق الأشياء، قيل: محله الرأس، وقيل: محله القلب.
Al-ʿaql (العقل) is that by which the realities of things are comprehended; it is said its locus is the head, and it is [also] said its locus is the heart. AI
العقل الهيولاني
هو الاستعداد المحض لإدراك المعقولات، وهي قوة محضة خالية عن الفعل كما للأطفال، وإنما نسب إلى الهيولي؛ لأن النفس في هذه المرتبة تشبه الهيولي الأولى الخالية في حد ذاتها من الصور كلها.
العقل
مأخوذ من عقال البعير، يمنع ذوي العقول من العدول عن سواء السبيل، والصحيح أنه جوهر مجرد يدرك الفانيات بالوسائط والمحسوسات بالمشاهدة.
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ع ق ل
العين والقاف واللام أصل واحد منقاس مطرد يدل عظمه على حبسة في الشيء أو ما يقارب الحبسة
ʿ-q-l is one root, measurable by analogy and consistent, the greater part of which indicates a restraint in something, or what is close to restraint. AI
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
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- قqāffar back of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- لlāmedge of the tongue · voiced, in betweenI. 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
ع
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 ↗
ق
ومن أقصى اللسان وما فوقه من الحنك الأعلى مخرج القاف
From the furthest part of the tongue and the upper palate above it is the place of the qāf. Sībawayh, line 26550 ↗
ومما فوق ذلك من أقصى اللسان، مخرج القاف
From above that, at the furthest part of the tongue, is the place of the qāf. Ibn Jinnī, line 972 ↗
ل
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان، من بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى، مما فويق الضاحك والناب والرباعية والثنية، مخرج اللام
From the edge of the tongue, from its nearest part to the end of its tip, between it and the upper palate next to it, just above the premolar, the canine, the lateral and the central incisor, is the place of the lām. Ibn Jinnī, lines 977–978 ↗
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
ع
Level of existence: الطبيعة · Nature
Divine Name: الباطن · The Inward (al-Bāṭin)
Lunar mansion: الثريا · al-Thurayyā (the Pleiades)
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 63825Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
ق
Spheres 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 2582ل
Level of existence: السماء الثالثة · the third heaven
Divine Name: القاهر · the Subduer (al-Qāhir)
Lunar mansion: العوا · al-ʿAwwā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64654Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2576 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ع
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم لقدوم أو رحيل.
It is a name for arrival or departure.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للساكن في الذات التي تقوم به.
It is a name for that which dwells in the self and by which the self subsists.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لخبث الذات.
It is a name for the foulness of the self.
ق
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى حيازة الخيرات أو إلى جميع الأنوار.
It is an indication of the acquisition of goods, or of all lights.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى النشأة الأصلية أو العلم القديم وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the original creation, or eternal knowledge, and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذل.
It is an indication of abasement.
ل
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي حصول المتكلم على شيء عظيم، وتكون إشارة إلى شيء عظيم.
It is the speaker's attaining of something great, and it serves as an indication of something great.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نهاية له.
It is an indication of the thing that has no end.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة من المتكلم إلى وجود ذاته أو إلى ذاته.
It is an indication by the speaker of the existence of his self, or of his self.
Two-letter nucleus6 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterع ق
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 19642 ↗
- عقلالعين والقاف واللام أصل واحد منقاس مطرد يدل عظمه على حبسة في الشيء أو ما يقارب الحبسةQ 49 · L19643
- عقوالعين والقاف والحرف المعتل كلمات لا تنقاس وليس يجمعها أصل وهي صحيحة وإحداها العقوة ما حول الدارL19743
- عقبالعين والقاف والباء أصلان صحيحان أحدهما يدل على تأخير شيء وإتيانه بعد غيره والأصل الآخر يدل على ارتفاع وشدة وصعوبةQ 80 · L19750
- عقدالعين والقاف والدال أصل واحد يدل على شد وشدة وثوق وإليه ترجع فروع الباب كلهاQ 7 · L19858
- عقصالعين والقاف والصاد أصل صحيح يدل على التواء في شيءL19988
- عقفالعين والقاف والفاء أصل صحيح يدل على عطف شيء وحنيهL20011
In the sister scriptsHebrew ע ק לSyriac ܥ ܩ ܠ
| Arabic | ع ق ل |
| Hebrew | ע ק ל |
| Syriac | ܥ ܩ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩲 𐩤 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤒 𐤋 |
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 defines ʿaql as the opposite of ignorance and maʿqūl as what one grasps in the heart.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl defines ʿaql as the opposite of ignorance and maʿqūl as what one grasps in the heart. He also lists concrete uses: a sick person's bowels 'ʿaqala' when they become firm, a child or simpleton 'ʿaqala' on reaching discernment, the camel is hobbled with the ʿiqāl, and ʿiqāl is a year's alms in camels. Al-Jawharī glosses ʿaql as ḥijr and nuhā, both terms of restraint. He reports Sībawayh's view that maʿqūl is an adjective ('something held and made firm for him'), and he gives ʿaql as blood-wit, which al-Aṣmaʿī explains from the camels tethered in the courtyard of the slain man's kin. Ibn Fāris gathers all of this under ḥubsa: ʿaql restrains from blameworthy speech and action, and maʿqil is a stronghold. Al-Rāghib turns to the faculty, calling ʿaql both the power disposed to receive knowledge and the knowledge acquired by it; Ibn Manẓūr cites Ibn al-Anbārī that the ʿāqil 'gathers his affairs and judgement', as one gathers a camel's legs in hobbling, and Lane takes manʿ, withholding, as the primary sense.
Draws on: al-Khalīl · al-Jawharī · Ibn Fāris · al-Rāghib · Ibn Manẓūr · Lane
Letters & soundThe data give no letter–heaven correspondences from Ibn ʿArabī for these three letters.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
The data give no letter–heaven correspondences from Ibn ʿArabī for these three letters. Al-Dabbāgh reads ʿayn as arrival or departure, qāf as the acquisition of goods or of all lights, and lām as the speaker's attaining something great. On that reading, ʿaql could be taken as a movement that ends in holding a great acquisition. Ibn Jinnī's imsās associates the deep, strong qāf with firmer or harder actions, and one could extend this to the grip of ʿaql and ʿaqd, though he does not discuss this root. Mainstream linguistics treats such readings as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh (al-Ibrīz) · Ibn Jinnī imsās (general)
Root structureWithin the nucleus ʿ-q, several of Ibn Fāris's siblings share a sense of tightening or bending: ʿ-q-d is tying and firmness, ʿ-q-ṣ is twisting, and ʿ-q-f is bending.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Within the nucleus ʿ-q, several of Ibn Fāris's siblings share a sense of tightening or bending: ʿ-q-d is tying and firmness, ʿ-q-ṣ is twisting, and ʿ-q-f is bending. These sit beside the hobbling sense of ʿ-q-l, while ʿ-q-b (following, or steepness) and ʿ-q-w (the area around a house) do not fit this pattern. Among the permutations, ʿ-l-q is hanging one thing on a higher thing, q-l-ʿ is pulling a thing out of another, and l-q-ʿ is throwing and hitting; q-ʿ-l and l-ʿ-q are attested but lack Maqāyīs glosses here. Setting ʿaql (holding fast) beside qalʿ (uprooting) invites a contrast of fixing and removing, but this is a juxtaposition and no shared meaning is claimed.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus siblings · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate with the sense 'bind' or 'understand' is available.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate with the sense 'bind' or 'understand' is available. Hebrew ʿ-q-l 'crooked, twisted' (as in Hab 1:4, meʿuqqāl) matches in form, but the meanings are too far apart to press the link. The word is native Arabic and not a loan. The philosophical sense of ʿaql was shaped as a rendering of Greek nous during the translation movement, which is a semantic calque with no borrowing of the word itself.
Draws on: no secure cognate · Hebrew ʿ-q-l (formal only) · Greek nous (semantic calque, falsafa)
Quranic exegesisThe Quran uses only the verb (taʿqilūn, yaʿqilūn, naʿqilu, ʿaqalūhu) and never the noun ʿaql.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
The Quran uses only the verb (taʿqilūn, yaʿqilūn, naʿqilu, ʿaqalūhu) and never the noun ʿaql. This led exegetes to read the root as an activity of understanding and taking heed, and not as a named faculty. On 2:44 ('Do you not understand?'), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī take the rebuke as aimed at people who enjoin piety on others and neglect it themselves, which acting with understanding would prevent. In 2:73 the reviving of the slain man is shown 'so that you may understand'. In 67:10 the damned confess that they neither heard nor understood. Al-Rāghib says that where God censures unbelievers for not using ʿaql, the acquired intellect is meant, since the innate faculty cannot be blamed.
Philosophy & kalāmIn falsafa, ʿaql renders nous.well attested
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In falsafa, ʿaql renders nous. Avicenna ranks the human intellect as material (hayūlānī), habitual (bi-l-malaka), actual (bi-l-fiʿl) and acquired (mustafād), and places the separate Active Intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl) at the end of the emanated celestial intellects, as the giver of intelligible forms. Among the mutakallimūn, al-Bāqillānī and others define ʿaql as a set of necessary knowledges (ʿulūm ḍarūriyya), not a substance. In the Iḥyāʾ, al-Ghazālī distinguishes four senses: an innate disposition, self-evident knowledge, knowledge gained from experience, and the power to restrain desire in view of consequences. The fourth of these returns to the root's sense of restraint.
Draws on: Avicenna · al-Ghazālī · mutakallimūn
Akbarian readingFaṣṣ Ādam says that this matter is not known by the intellect through reflective consideration (naẓar fikrī) and comes only by unveiling (kashf).well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Faṣṣ Ādam says that this matter is not known by the intellect through reflective consideration (naẓar fikrī) and comes only by unveiling (kashf). The same chapter uses maʿqūl for the universal matters: they have no existence in their own entity yet are 'intelligible and known without doubt in the mind'. They remain inward (bāṭina) through their maʿqūliyya while appearing in the entities of existents, and every existent entity depends on them. Elsewhere Ibn ʿArabī derives ʿaql from ʿiqāl, the hobble, contrasting the intellect's binding and delimiting with the heart (qalb), which turns (taqallub) with each self-disclosure; this theme is developed in Faṣṣ Shuʿayb. In his cosmology the First Intellect (al-ʿaql al-awwal) is identified with the Supreme Pen.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam · ʿaql / ʿiqāl · al-ʿaql al-awwal
Figures with this root
Reference