Root · 2 in the Quran · 10 in 7 texts of the library
عيلPer Ibn Fāris: the ʿ-y-l form is entirely a wāw-derivative meaning poverty and want; the … (root yl)
العين واللام والياء ليس فيه إلا ما هو منقلب عن واو العيلة الفاقة والحاجة
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ع ي ل that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
22 words4 verbs6 verbal nouns4 participles2 intensives and elatives6 other nouns
- عَيْلَةpoverty, and want
- عَائِلpoor, and needy, or in want
- عِيَالdependents
- عَالَhe was, or became, poor, and in want
- اعالَhe had a family, or household
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4عَالَ · عيّلَ · اعالَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Verbal nouns6عَيْلَة · عَيَلَان · عَوْل
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles4عَائِل · مُعَيَّل · مُعَيِّل
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2عيْلَان · عَيَّال
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns6عِيَال · عَيَل · عَيِّل
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- عِيَالdependentsautonounlibrary ×1Lane
- عَيَلthe propounding of one's narration, and talk, to him who does not desire it …LanenounLane
- عَيِّلnounLane
- عَيْلَىwoman that weeps or wails for the deadLanenounLane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 11 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-ʿiyāl (العيال) is a group of ʿayyil (عيل, dependent).
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 · 393ʿĀla al-farasu yaʿīlu ʿaylan (عال الفرس يعيل عيلا) 'when the horse swayed and leaned in its gait,' so it is a horse [called] ʿayyāl (عيال), and that is due to its nobility.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395ʿAyn (ع), lām (ل), and yāʾ (ي): there is nothing in it except what is a transformation from wāw (و), [namely] al-ʿaylah (العيلة) 'want, need.' One says ʿāla yaʿīlu ʿaylatan (عال يعيل عيلة) 'when he became needy.' God Alm
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502God Almighty said: 'And if you fear ʿaylah (عيلة)' [Sūrat al-Tawbah, 28], i.e., poverty.
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 · 711ʿĀla yaʿīlu ʿaylan wa-ʿaylatan wa-ʿuyūlan wa-ʿuyūlan wa-muʿīlan (عال يعيل عيلا وعيلة وعيولا وعيولا ومعيلا): 'he became poor.' Al-ʿayyil (العيل) is 'the poor man,' and likewise al-ʿāʾil (العائل).
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.
ع ي ل
العين واللام والياء ليس فيه إلا ما هو منقلب عن واو العيلة الفاقة والحاجة
ʿ-l-y has nothing in it except what is converted from wāw: al-ʿayla, meaning poverty and need. 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
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · 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 ↗
ي
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 ↗
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 ↗
ي
Level of existence: السماء الأولى · The First Heaven
Divine Name: الرب · The Lord (al-Rabb)
Lunar mansion: الخرتان · al-Kharatān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64500Spheres 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.
ي
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي للنداء، وقد يؤكد بها.
It is for the vocative (calling), and it may be used for emphasis.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا يثبت كالبرق ونحوه.
It is an indication of the thing that does not remain fixed, like lightning and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يستحيا به أو يستحيا منه كالعورة.
It is an indication of the thing that causes shame, or of which one is ashamed, like the private parts.
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 nucleus11 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterع ي
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 21201 ↗
- عيبالعين والياء والباء أصل صحيح فيه كلمتان إحداهما العيب والأخرى العيبة وهما متباعدتان فالعيب في الشىء معروف تقول عاب فلان فلانا يعيبه ورجل عيابة وقاع فيQ 1 · L21202
- عيثالعين والياء والثاء أصلان صحيحان متقاربان أحدهما الإسراع في الفساد والآخر تطلب الشيء على غير بصيرةL21208
- عيجالعين والياء والجيم أصيل صحيح يدل على إقبال وإكتراث للشيء يقولون ما عجت بقول فلان أي لم أصدقه ولم أقبل عليه وما أعيج بشيء يأتيني من قبلهL21218
- عيرالعين والياء والراء أصلان صحيحان يدل أحدهما على نتو الشيء وارتفاعه والآخر على مجيء وذهابQ 3 · L21222
- عيسالعين والياء والسين كلمتان إحداهما لون أبيض مشرب والأخرى عسب الفحلL21245
- عيشالعين والياء والشين أصل صحيح يدل على حياة وبقاءQ 8 · L21256
- عيصالعين والنون والصاد أصل صحيح وهو المنبتL21266
- عيكالعين والياء والكاف لم يذكر الخليل فيه شيئا وهو بناء جيد وإن لم يجيء فيه كلام لكن العيكتين موضع في بلاد العرب معروفL21302
- عيلالعين واللام والياء ليس فيه إلا ما هو منقلب عن واو العيلة الفاقة والحاجةQ 2 · L21304
- عيمالعين والياء والميم كلمة واحدة صحيحة وهي شهوة اللبنL21308
- عينالعين والياء والنون أصل واحد صحيح يدل على عضو به يبصر وينظر ثم يشتق منه والأصل في جميعه ما ذكرناQ 65 · L21313
In the sister scriptsHebrew ע י לSyriac ܥ ܝ ܠ
| Arabic | ع ي ل |
| Hebrew | ע י ל |
| Syriac | ܥ ܝ ܠ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩲 𐩺 𐩡 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤉 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's ʿAyn entry (given under ع-و-ل) is broad: al-ʿawl as the rise in the reckoning of inheritance shares, al-ʿawl as mayl in judgment (injustice), al-ʿawl as any burdensome affair, al-ʿawla from al-ʿawīl (loud weeping), and even al-miʿwal (pickaxe) and ʿawwala ʿalayhi (to rely on someone) — a dense cluster of senses around deviation, burden, and dependence.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl's ʿAyn entry (given under ع-و-ل) is broad: al-ʿawl as the rise in the reckoning of inheritance shares, al-ʿawl as mayl in judgment (injustice), al-ʿawl as any burdensome affair, al-ʿawla from al-ʿawīl (loud weeping), and even al-miʿwal (pickaxe) and ʿawwala ʿalayhi (to rely on someone) — a dense cluster of senses around deviation, burden, and dependence. Al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ narrows toward weeping (al-ʿawl/al-ʿawla = raising the voice in crying, aʿwala = wept loudly, cf. hadith al-muʿawwal ʿalayhi yuʿadhdhab) while retaining ʿawwaltu ʿalayhi (I relied on him) and al-ʿāla (a rain-shelter). Ibn Fāris, however, treats the yāʾ-form ع-ي-ل as a distinct, narrower matter: nothing in it but what is converted from wāw, namely al-ʿayla, poverty and want, citing Q9:28 and the hadith 'mā ʿāla muqtaṣid' (the frugal person never becomes poor). Al-Rāghib's Mufradāt (under ʿ-w-l) glosses al-ʿawl as departure from fairness by taking excess (tafsīr of Q4:3, dhālika adnā allā taʿūlū), extends it to ʿālat al-farīḍa (the inheritance computation exceeding the nominal shares), and derives al-ʿiyāl (dependents) from the sense of bearing a burden. Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān likewise treats al-ʿawl as mayl ilā al-jawr (deviation toward injustice), citing the same Q4:3 debate and ʿUthmān's dictum 'lastu bi-mīzānin lā aʿūlu' (I am not a balance that tips); Lane's entry for ʿayl confirms that by classical usage the yāʾ-form settles specifically as 'he was, or became, poor,' distinct from the ʿawl-cluster of weeping, injustice, and dependents.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, s.v. ع-ي-ل
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, s.v. عول
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. عال
- Wiktionary root appendix (link not verified)
Letters & soundThe Akbarian table assigns ʿayn to Nature (al-ṭabīʿa), yāʾ to the First Heaven, and lām to the third heaven.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
The Akbarian table assigns ʿayn to Nature (al-ṭabīʿa), yāʾ to the First Heaven, and lām to the third heaven. Al-Dabbāghī's gloss of ʿayn (fatḥa) as 'a name for arrival or departure' is suggestively apt for ʿāla/yaʿūlu's sense of a balance tipping (departing from level, hence injustice) and for ʿayla as a falling-away from sufficiency into want. His gloss of lām (fatḥa) as 'the speaker's attaining something great' sits in some tension with a root meaning lack and deprivation, if anything an inverse resonance. This is offered as suggestive juxtaposition only; it is not supported by mainstream comparative or historical linguistics.
Draws on: akbari letter-values · dabbagh
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings (fatḥa series)
Root structureIbn Fāris's own note that ع-ي-ل contains 'nothing but what is converted from wāw' effectively folds this chapter back into ع-و-ل, making it an unusually thin independent entry among its ع-ي-* neighbors (ʿayb: fault/receptacle;plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's own note that ع-ي-ل contains 'nothing but what is converted from wāw' effectively folds this chapter back into ع-و-ل, making it an unusually thin independent entry among its ع-ي-* neighbors (ʿayb: fault/receptacle; ʿayth: hasty corruption; ʿayj: heeding; ʿayr: protuberance, coming-and-going; ʿays: whiteness, stallion's semen; ʿaysh: life/subsistence; ʿayṣ: thicket; ʿaym: craving milk) — most of which are genuine independent yāʾ-roots. Among the permutations, عيل alone is attested and semantically live (poverty, 2 Quranic occurrences); علي is attested elsewhere as height/loftiness (ʿuluww), a formally adjacent but semantically unconnected root reached by simple metathesis; يعل, يلع, لعي, ليع show no independent usage in the data given, and Ibn Fāris explicitly classes لعي material as words 'not reducible to one pattern.' The عيل/علي metathesis (poverty/height) is a bare formal coincidence, not a connection Ibn Fāris draws.
Draws on: maqayis nucleus siblings · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, nucleus chapters ع-ي-*
Semitic kin & loanwordsThe 'injustice/deviation' branch of this root-cluster (Arabic ʿawl, mayl fī al-ḥukm) has a confident Hebrew cognate in ʿāwel (עָוֶל), 'unrighteousness, injustice,' both reflecting a common Semitic sense of deviation from the straight or the just.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
The 'injustice/deviation' branch of this root-cluster (Arabic ʿawl, mayl fī al-ḥukm) has a confident Hebrew cognate in ʿāwel (עָוֶל), 'unrighteousness, injustice,' both reflecting a common Semitic sense of deviation from the straight or the just. The narrower 'poverty' sense that Ibn Fāris isolates as ع-ي-ل (the sense actually used in the Quranic occurrences here) has no equally confident external Semitic cognate in the sources at hand and appears to be an Arabic-internal semantic narrowing. There is no basis for treating either sense as a loanword.
Draws on: comparative Semitic
- BDB, s.v. עָוֶל
Quranic exegesisAt Q93:8, 'wa-wajadaka ʿāʾilan fa-aghnā' (He found you poor and made you rich), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read ʿāʾilan as materially poor — lacking wealth and provisions in the Prophet's early life — and aghnā as God's subsequent provision, whether through worldly sufficiency, the gains of later years, or contentment of the heart;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q93:8, 'wa-wajadaka ʿāʾilan fa-aghnā' (He found you poor and made you rich), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read ʿāʾilan as materially poor — lacking wealth and provisions in the Prophet's early life — and aghnā as God's subsequent provision, whether through worldly sufficiency, the gains of later years, or contentment of the heart; al-Rāzī notes the latter spiritual reading alongside the literal one. At Q9:28, 'wa-in khiftum ʿaylatan fa-sawfa yughnīkumu Allāhu min faḍlihi in shāʾa,' addressed to believers fearing loss of trade after polytheists were barred from the sacred precinct, the exegetes read ʿayla straightforwardly as fear of poverty, with the verse promising divine compensation. Both Quranic occurrences use the narrow 'poverty/want' sense that Ibn Fāris isolates for ع-ي-ل, not the ʿawl cluster of weeping or injustice found in Q4:3.
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