Root · 65 in the Quran · 372 in 26 texts of the library
عينPer Ibn Fāris, a single sound root denoting the bodily organ with which one sees and … (root yn)
العين والياء والنون أصل واحد صحيح يدل على عضو به يبصر وينظر ثم يشتق منه والأصل في جميعه ما ذكرنا قال الخليل العين …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ع ي ن that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
42 words7 verbs5 verbal nouns6 participles3 places and instruments3 intensives and elatives11 other nouns5 plurals2 relatives and abstracts
- عَيْنwhat is means, or should be, I know not.)
- أَعْيُن—
- عُيُون—
- عَيْنِيّocular; eye
- أَعْيانnotables; VIP's
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7عَيْنَ · اِسْتَعانَ · عايَنَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- عَيْنَForm ILaneIbn Fāris
- اِسْتَعانَseek aid from; resort toautoForm Xlibrary ×6
- عايَنَhe met him eye to eye , or face to face, not doubting of his seeing himLaneForm IIIlibrary ×4Lane
- عَيَّنَhe bored, perforated, or pierced, the pearlLaneForm IIlibrary ×3LaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns5تَعْيِين · عيَان · عَيَن
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles6مُعَيَّن · عَائِن · مَعْيُون
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Place, time and instrument3مَعِين · مِعْيَان · مَعَان
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative3أَعْيَن · عَيَّان · عَيُون
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns11عَيْن · أَعْيان · عِيَان
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- عَيْنwhat is means, or should be, I know not.)LanenounQurʾān ×57library ×193LaneIbn Fāris
- أَعْيانnotables; VIP'sautonounlibrary ×13Ibn Fāris
- عِيَانeye-(witness)autonounlibrary ×7LaneIbn Fāris
- مُعايَنَةexamination; inspectionautonounlibrary ×4Ibn Fāris
Plurals5أَعْيُن · عُيُون · عِين
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- أَعْيُنbroken plural of عَيْنQurʾān ×22library ×5LaneIbn Fāris
- عُيُونsound plural of عَيْنQurʾān ×10library ×3Ibn Fāris
- عِينsound plural of عQurʾān ×4Ibn Fāris
- مَعِينsound plural of مَعQurʾān ×4Ibn Fāris
- أَعْيَانbroken plural of عَيْنLaneIbn Fāris
Relative and abstract2عَيْنِيّ · عِيانِيّ
-iyy relates a thing to its source; -iyya makes an abstract noun.grammar →
- عَيْنِيّocular; eyeautorelative adjective (-iyy)library ×15Ibn Fāris
- عِيانِيّeye; ocularautorelative adjective (-iyy)library ×1
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 22 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 · 170Anything by which you are aided (istaʿanta bihi), or that aids you (aʿānaka), is your ʿawn (عونك).
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-ʿawān (العوان) is 'the middling one in age' (al-niṣf fī sinnihā) of anything, plural ʿūn (عون).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Al-ʿayn (ع), al-yāʾ (ي), and al-nūn (ن) form one sound root indicating an organ by which one sees and looks;
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-ʿawn (العون) is mutual help and support (al-muʿāwanah wa-l-muẓāharah).
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-ʿawn (العون) is 'the helper in a matter' (al-ẓahīr ʿalā l-amr);
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 ن
العين والياء والنون أصل واحد صحيح يدل على عضو به يبصر وينظر ثم يشتق منه والأصل في جميعه ما ذكرنا
ʿ-y-n: one sound root indicating a body part by which one sees and looks; then it is derived from it, and the root in all of it is what we have mentioned. 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
- نnūntip of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · 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
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 ↗
ن
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان ما بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى وما فويق الثنايا مخرج النون
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 and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Sībawayh, lines 26555–26556 ↗
ومن طرف اللسان بينه وبين ما فويق الثنايا، مخرج النون
From the tip of the tongue, between it and what is just above the front teeth, is the place of the nūn. Ibn Jinnī, line 979 ↗
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 2582ن
Level of existence: السماء الرابعة · the fourth heaven
Divine Name: النور · the Light (al-Nūr)
Lunar mansion: السماك · al-Simāk
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64663Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 8 line 2571 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
الثمانية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The eightfold [rank]: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2580Meaning 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.
ن
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الخير الساكن في الذات الشاعل فيها.
It is the good that dwells in the self, kindling [al-shāʿil, as written] within it.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الخير الكامل أو النور الساطع.
It is an indication of perfect good or radiant light.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى شيء يدركه المتكلم أو هو له.
It is an indication of something that the speaker perceives or that belongs to him.
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 נSyriac ܥ ܝ ܢ
| Arabic | ع ي ن |
| Hebrew | ע י נ |
| Syriac | ܥ ܝ ܢ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩲 𐩺 𐩬 |
| Phoenician | 𐤏 𐤉 𐤍 |
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 excerpts supplied under al-Khalīl, al-Jawharī, al-Rāghib and Ibn Manẓūr belong to the neighbouring root ʿ-w-n (ʿawn, 'help';plausible
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
The excerpts supplied under al-Khalīl, al-Jawharī, al-Rāghib and Ibn Manẓūr belong to the neighbouring root ʿ-w-n (ʿawn, 'help'; ʿawān, 'middle-aged'), so they cannot be used for ʿ-y-n. Al-Khalīl's view survives here only through Ibn Fāris, who quotes him defining al-ʿayn as the seeing eye of every creature with sight. Ibn Fāris traces the whole root to that organ and records the plurals aʿyun, ʿuyūn and aʿyān, with the rare aʿyināt. He treats 'the eye of the heart' as a comparison and cites the verb ʿintu al-rajul, 'I struck the man with my eye', whose object is maʿyūn. Lane, in the portion supplied, makes ʿayn the verbal noun of ʿāna, meaning to hit someone in the eye or to smite someone with the evil eye, which a tradition affirms to be real. The later senses of 'spring' and 'self, entity' are not covered by the excerpts given and are left unargued here.
Draws on: Maqāyīs · Khalīl via Ibn Fāris · Lane · data caveat
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha, s.v. ʿ-y-n
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. عين
- Wiktionary: Arabic root ع ي ن ↗
Letters & soundIn al-Dabbāgh's letter meanings, ʿayn names arrival or departure, yāʾ serves for calling and emphasis, and nūn is the good that dwells in the self and kindles within it.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In al-Dabbāgh's letter meanings, ʿayn names arrival or departure, yāʾ serves for calling and emphasis, and nūn is the good that dwells in the self and kindles within it. The data assign yāʾ to the First Heaven in Ibn ʿArabī's correspondences; no assignment is given here for ʿayn or nūn. A reader in the spirit of Ibn Jinnī's imsās might set the deep pharyngeal ʿayn, the letter that bears this word as its own name, against the closure on the nasal nūn. That reading would be the reader's construction and is not something Ibn Jinnī says of this root. Mainstream linguistics regards such sound-meaning correspondences as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh · Ibn ʿArabī letter data · imsās
- Aḥmad b. al-Mubārak, al-Ibrīz (sayings of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dabbāgh)
- Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, ch. 2 (letters)
Root structureIbn Fāris's ʿ-y chapter places ʿ-y-n beside the following roots: ʿ-y-sh (life and continuance), ʿ-y-b (defect), ʿ-y-th (hastening to corruption;plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's ʿ-y chapter places ʿ-y-n beside the following roots: ʿ-y-sh (life and continuance), ʿ-y-b (defect), ʿ-y-th (hastening to corruption; searching without insight), ʿ-y-r (protrusion; coming and going), ʿ-y-j (paying attention), ʿ-y-s (a whitish colour), ʿ-y-l (need, a wāw-derived form) and ʿ-y-m (craving milk). Several of these, 'searching without baṣīra' and 'paying heed' in particular, touch on attention, but no shared nuclear meaning is claimed. Among the permutations, Ibn Fāris gives ʿ-n-y three bases: intent pursued eagerly, submission, and the appearance and emergence of a thing. He glosses n-ʿ-y as the spreading of news, above all news of a death. Y-n-ʿ, the ripening of fruit, occurs once in the Qurʾān (Q 6:99). Read side by side in the manner of Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation, 'emerging into view', 'becoming ripe and visible' and 'making known' sit near 'the seeing eye', but this is juxtaposition only.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris chapter siblings · permutations
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
- Q 6:99 ↗
Semitic kin & loanwordsThe root reflects Proto-Semitic *ʿayn-, 'eye;well attested
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
The root reflects Proto-Semitic *ʿayn-, 'eye; spring'. Its cognates are secure: Hebrew ʿayin, Jewish Aramaic and Syriac ʿaynā, Akkadian īnu, Geʿez ʿayn, and Sabaic ʿyn. The double sense of 'eye' and 'water-source' is shared across the family and is inherited, not an Arabic innovation. The name of the letter ʿayn, like its Phoenician and Hebrew counterparts, is this same word. The Arabic word is native and not a loanword.
Draws on: common Semitic · BDB · CAL
- BDB, עַיִן, p. 744 ↗
- CAL, ʿyn N ↗
- Wiktionary: עין ↗
- Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez, s.v. ʿayn
Quranic exegesisAt Q 2:60, the twelve springs (ʿaynan) that burst from the rock struck by Moses are explained by al-Ṭabarī as one for each tribe (sibṭ), so that each group knew its drinking place.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q 2:60, the twelve springs (ʿaynan) that burst from the rock struck by Moses are explained by al-Ṭabarī as one for each tribe (sibṭ), so that each group knew its drinking place. At Q 23:50 and 37:45, maʿīn is glossed by the exegetes as flowing water visible on the surface. Al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī record the dispute over whether maʿīn is a passive form from ʿayn ('seen by the eye') or a faʿīl form from m-ʿ-n ('abundant, running'). At Q 37:48, ʿīn is read as the plural of ʿaynāʾ, meaning women with large, beautiful eyes. At Q 3:13, raʾya al-ʿayn, 'as the eye sees', is taken as actual visual perception, and al-Rāzī discusses which party saw the other as double and how.
Philosophy & kalāmIn kalām, ʿayn (plural aʿyān) denotes a concrete existent, as in the pairing of aʿyān, substances and bodies, with aʿrāḍ, accidents.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In kalām, ʿayn (plural aʿyān) denotes a concrete existent, as in the pairing of aʿyān, substances and bodies, with aʿrāḍ, accidents. Some Muʿtazila held that the non-existent (al-maʿdūm) is a 'thing' with a fixed essence (dhāt thābita) before it exists. This debate is an important background to the later notion of fixed entities. In Avicenna and the falsafa tradition, fī al-aʿyān ('in concrete things', extramentally) is contrasted with fī al-adhhān ('in minds'), and ʿayn can mean a thing's very self, as in ʿayn al-shayʾ.
Draws on: kalām · Avicenna
- SEP: Ibn Sina ↗
- Richard M. Frank, 'Al-maʿdūm wal-mawjūd' (MIDEO 14, 1980)
Akbarian readingFaṣṣ Ādam opens with the Real willing, by virtue of His innumerable Most Beautiful Names, to see their aʿyān, or, 'if you wish, His own ʿayn'.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Faṣṣ Ādam opens with the Real willing, by virtue of His innumerable Most Beautiful Names, to see their aʿyān, or, 'if you wish, His own ʿayn'. He sees them in a comprehensive being (kawn jāmiʿ) that encloses the whole affair. Here ʿayn slides between 'entities' and 'the very self', and the text makes the equivalence explicit. Adam is called ʿayn jalāʾ, the very polishing of the world's mirror. The human is to the Real as insān al-ʿayn, the pupil of the eye by which looking occurs, which Ibn ʿArabī calls baṣar. The root thus carries, within a single chapter, 'self', 'eye' and the emphatic 'very'. In his wider terminology, the aʿyān thābita are the things as fixed in God's knowledge, which never themselves leave non-existence while their properties appear in the Real's being.
Draws on: Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam · aʿyān thābita
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
- W. C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (1989), ch. on the fixed entities
Reference