Root · 38 in the Quran · 91 in 18 texts of the library
فتحa sound root denoting the opposite of closing. (root fth)
الفاء والتاء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على خلاف الإغلاق
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ف ت ح that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
42 words9 verbs4 verbal nouns7 participles3 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives9 other nouns8 plurals
- فَتَحَhe opened
- فَتْحopening; beginning
- مِفْتَاحkeys; switches
- اِنْفَتَحَthe doors opened, or became opened or open
- اِسْتَفْتَحَ—
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs9فَتَحَ · اِنْفَتَحَ · اِسْتَفْتَحَ
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 يَفْعَلُ (a – a; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- فَتَحَhe openedLaneForm IQurʾān ×16library ×29LaneIbn Fāris
- اِنْفَتَحَthe doors opened, or became opened or openLaneForm VIIlibrary ×7Lane
- اِسْتَفْتَحَLane: see Form IForm XQurʾān ×3Lane
- فَتَّحَForm IIQurʾān ×1LaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns4فَتْح · اِفْتِتاح · فِتَاح
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- فَتْحopening; beginningautoForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×12library ×12LaneIbn Fāris
- اِفْتِتاحopening; inaugurationautoForm VIIIlibrary ×1
- فِتَاحForm III · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- مُفَاتَحَةForm III · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles7مَفَاتِح · فَاتِح · مَفْتُوح
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مَفَاتِحactive, Form IIIQurʾān ×3
- فَاتِحopeningLaneactive, Form Ilibrary ×3LaneIbn Fāris
- مَفْتُوحopened, or unclosed, and an unlocked, doorLanepassive, Form Ilibrary ×2LaneIbn Fāris
- مُفَتَّحَةpassive, Form IIQurʾān ×1
Place, time and instrument3مِفْتَاح · مَفْتَح · مِفْتَح
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مِفْتَاحkeys; switchesautonoun of instrumentlibrary ×8Lane
- مَفْتَحplace in which things are reposited, stowed, laid up, kept, preserved, or …Lanenoun of place or timeLane
- مِفْتَحnoun of instrumentLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative2فَتَّاح · فَتُوح
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- فَتَّاحopenerLaneintensive (faʿʿāl)Qurʾān ×1library ×1Lane
- فَتُوحshe-camel having wide orifices to her teatsLaneintensive (faʿūl)Lane
Other nouns9فَتَاحَة · فُتَاحَة · فُتُح
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals8مَفاتِيح · فَاتِحِين · فَوَاتِح
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
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
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-fatḥ (الفتح): the opposite of closing (الإغلاق).
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 · 393Fataḥtu al-bāb fa-nfataḥa (فتحت الباب فانفتح): I opened the door and it opened.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Fāʾ, tāʾ, ḥāʾ (ف ت ح) is a sound root indicating the opposite of closing (الإغلاق).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-fatḥ (الفتح): the removal of closure (الإغلاق) and of difficulty/ambiguity (الإشكال).
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
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 definitions2 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الفتوح
فتوح العبارة فى الظاهر وفتوح الحلاوة فى الباطن وفتوح المكاشفة.
الفتوح
عبارة عن حصول شيء مما لم يتوقع ذلك منه.
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ف ت ح
الفاء والتاء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على خلاف الإغلاق
F-t-ḥ is one sound root that indicates the opposite of closing. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lane ↗al-Khalīl: used ↗Quran ×38
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
- فfāʾlower lip and upper teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- تtāʾtongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiceless, 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
ف
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26562 ↗
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى، مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 985 ↗
ت
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا مخرج الطاء، والدال، والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26559 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا، مخرج الطاء والدال والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 982 ↗
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
ف
Level of existence: الملائكة · the angels
Divine Name: القوى · the Strong (al-Qawī)
Lunar mansion: سعد الأخبية · Saʿd al-Akhbiya
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65823Spheres 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 2582ت
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 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
ف
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي لنفي الخبث بعد ما كان جنسه معلوما بالخبث، فهي إشارة إلى أنه طاهر وجنسه خبيث، والخبث مثل المعاصي وما أشبهها.
It is for negating foulness in something whose genus is known for foulness. It thus indicates that the thing is pure while its genus is foul; foulness being like sins and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي لتزويل الخبث.
It is for removing foulness.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذات وما احتوت عليه، وفي بعض الأحيان قد يكون معها التقليل.
It is an indication of the self and what it contains; at times it may carry a sense of diminution.
ت
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للخير الكثير العظيم.
It is a name for abundant, great good.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للقليل البارز.
It is a name for the small, protruding/manifest thing.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لما صنع وأبرز.
It is a name for what has been made and brought forth.
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.
Two-letter nucleus4 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterف ت
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 24676 ↗
- فتحالفاء والتاء والحاء أصل صحيح يدل على خلاف الإغلاقQ 38 · L24677
- فتخالفاء والتاء والخاء أصل صحيح يدل على لين في الشيء فالفتخ لين في جناح الطائر وعقاب فتخاء إذا انكسر جناحها في طيرانها وفتخ أصابع رجله في جلوسه إذا لينهاL24683
- فتشالفاء والتاء والشين كلمة واحدة تدل على بحث عن شيء تقول فتشت فتشا وفتشت تفتيشاL24695
- فتنالفاء والتاء والنون أصل صحيح يدل على ابتلاء واختبارQ 60 · L24714
In the sister scriptsHebrew פ ת חSyriac ܦ ܬ ܚ
| Arabic | ف ت ح |
| Hebrew | פ ת ח |
| Syriac | ܦ ܬ ܚ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩰 𐩩 𐩢 |
| Phoenician | 𐤐 𐤕 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 gives fatḥ as the opposite of ighlāq, then extends it outward to futūḥ dār al-ḥarb ('conquest'), to the sense 'give a legal judgment between disputants' (citing Q7:89, 'rabbanā ftaḥ baynanā'), to fatḥ as 'victory/support' (Q61:13), and to mafātiḥ as the keys/treasuries of the unseen (Q6:59).well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives fatḥ as the opposite of ighlāq, then extends it outward to futūḥ dār al-ḥarb ('conquest'), to the sense 'give a legal judgment between disputants' (citing Q7:89, 'rabbanā ftaḥ baynanā'), to fatḥ as 'victory/support' (Q61:13), and to mafātiḥ as the keys/treasuries of the unseen (Q6:59). Al-Jawharī keeps the literal opening of doors and locks, adds bāb fatḥ ('a wide-open door') and qārūra fatḥ ('a wide-mouthed, stopperless flask,' per al-Kisāʾī), and confirms fattāḥ as 'judge.' Ibn Fāris consolidates these as one coherent nucleus — closing's opposite — from which judgment (God as al-Fātiḥ, the Judge), the flowing of a spring, victory, and the fawātiḥ (opening letters) of Quranic sūras all radiate. Al-Rāghib then divides fatḥ into the perceptible (opening a door, a lock, Q12:65, Q15:14) and the intelligible (removing distress, opening of the heart), and further subdivides worldly 'openings' as at Q6:44, 'fataḥnā ʿalayhim abwāba kulli shayʾ' — an opening/expansion of abundance. Lane's entry (Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān is not given here) confirms fataḥa/fattaḥa/iftataḥa/istaftaḥa as near-synonyms, all built on 'opposite of aghlaqa.'
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · Lane
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, ftḥ
- al-Rāghib, Mufradāt, ftḥ
- Lane, Lexicon, ftḥ
Letters & soundFāʾ is glossed in the Akbarian source as 'the angels,' and by al-Dabbāgh as negating foulness within a genus known for foulness — marking a thing as pure though its kind is not.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Fāʾ is glossed in the Akbarian source as 'the angels,' and by al-Dabbāgh as negating foulness within a genus known for foulness — marking a thing as pure though its kind is not. Tāʾ has no Akbarian gloss given, but al-Dabbāgh reads it as a name for abundant, great good. Ḥāʾ is glossed as 'the dust-like (habābī) substance,' and by al-Dabbāgh as denoting encompassing and total inclusion. A symbolic reading of f-t-ḥ might thus see purification (fāʾ) yielding abundant good (tāʾ) through total encompassing (ḥāʾ) — apt to the semantic range from 'opening' to 'victory' and 'abundance,' but this remains speculative sound-symbolism; mainstream linguistics assigns individual Arabic letters no independent meaning.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings (fatḥa series)
Root structureIbn Fāris places ftḥ beside ftkh ('pliancy,' as in a bird's slack wing or loosened toes when sitting), ftsh ('to search, investigate'), and ftl ('to twist').uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris places ftḥ beside ftkh ('pliancy,' as in a bird's slack wing or loosened toes when sitting), ftsh ('to search, investigate'), and ftl ('to twist'). Among the permutations, tfḥ is unattested as a verb but is the single fixed word tuffāḥ ('apple'), and ḥtf ('death, fate') is likewise a fixed noun admitting no derived verb — Ibn Fāris notes explicitly that no verb is built from it. A reader inclined to Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation might note the bare inversion of fatḥ ('opening,' toward life and disclosure) and ḥatf ('death,' the ultimate closing) as the same three letters read in opposite order — a suggestive juxtaposition, not an etymological claim Ibn Fāris himself makes.
Draws on: maqayis-nucleusSiblings · maqayis-permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, ftḥ and neighboring chapters
Semitic kin & loanwordsF-t-ḥ is a Common Semitic root, not a loan into Arabic.well attested
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
F-t-ḥ is a Common Semitic root, not a loan into Arabic. Hebrew pātaḥ (פָּתַח) 'to open' and Aramaic/Syriac pətaḥ (ܦܬܚ) share the same sense and the same consonantal skeleton, and Akkadian petû 'to open' is a recognized cognate with the expected sound correspondence. The Arabic verb's semantic range — literal opening, judicial decision, victory/conquest — largely parallels the Hebrew and Aramaic uses, supporting inheritance from a common ancestor rather than borrowing.
Draws on: comparative Semitic, well-attested
Quranic exegesisExegetes read fatḥ across a spread from the literal (opening a door, a container) to the judicial (Q7:89's ftaḥ baynanā, 'judge between us,' behind the divine name al-Fattāḥ) to the eschatological (the opening of heaven's gates for the righteous or as a portent, Q7:40, 54:11) to the historical-political (fatḥ as conquest, most fully in Sūrat al-Fatḥ).well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Exegetes read fatḥ across a spread from the literal (opening a door, a container) to the judicial (Q7:89's ftaḥ baynanā, 'judge between us,' behind the divine name al-Fattāḥ) to the eschatological (the opening of heaven's gates for the righteous or as a portent, Q7:40, 54:11) to the historical-political (fatḥ as conquest, most fully in Sūrat al-Fatḥ). At Q6:44, 'fataḥnā ʿalayhim abwāba kulli shayʾ,' al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī read the 'opening' of worldly abundance upon those who had forgotten the warning as istidrāj — a gradual, deceptive granting of prosperity leading to ruin, not a mercy; al-Rāghib's own division of fatḥ into sensory and intelligible types (given above) underwrites this reading, since a worldly 'opening' can mask an intelligible closing (of the heart). Al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī likewise treat the istiftāḥ of Q2:89's disbelievers (seeking fatḥ/victory against the pagans before the Prophet's coming) as ironic, since the very fatḥ they sought became evidence against them once they rejected the Prophet.
Akbarian readingIbn ʿArabī's own Iṣṭilāḥ distinguishes three futūḥ (openings/disclosures granted to the traveler on the path): futūḥ al-ʿibāra fī l-ẓāhir, the opening of eloquent expression outwardly;well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Ibn ʿArabī's own Iṣṭilāḥ distinguishes three futūḥ (openings/disclosures granted to the traveler on the path): futūḥ al-ʿibāra fī l-ẓāhir, the opening of eloquent expression outwardly; futūḥ al-ḥalāwa fī l-bāṭin, the opening of sweetness inwardly; and futūḥ al-mukāshafa, the opening of unveiling — a graded technical taxonomy of what is commonly called al-futūḥāt al-ilāhiyya, the title-concept of his major work. In Faṣṣ Ādam, the image of the king's seal (khatm) guarding treasuries turns on fatḥ in its ordinary sense: no one dares to 'open' (fatḥ) what the seal protects without the sealholder's permission, a figure for how prophecy/sainthood preserves the cosmos's hidden treasuries. The same faṣṣ uses iftitāḥ al-wujūd ʿan ʿadam, 'the opening/inception of existence out of nonexistence,' to mark the very threshold that cannot be attributed to God despite His being al-Awwal — God's priority is not an iftitāḥ, since iftitāḥ presupposes a prior closed/non-existent state that only contingent being possesses.
Draws on: ibnArabiDefinitions · inFassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference