Root · 50 in the Quran · 33 in 12 texts of the library
فسدPer Ibn Fāris, a single sense: fasād, the state of departing from soundness — to become … (root fsd)
الفاء والسين والدال كلمة واحدة فسد الشيء يفسد فسادا وفسودا وهو فاسد وفسيد
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ف س د that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
17 words7 verbs3 verbal nouns2 participles1 place or instrument2 intensives and elatives2 plurals
- مُفْسِد—
- أَفْسَدَhe, or it, made, or rendered, bad, evil, corrupt, unsound, wrong, wrongful, …
- فَسَادbadness, evilness, corruptness, unsoundness, wrongness, wrongfulness, …
- فَسَدَتِit and he was, or became, bad, evil, corrupt, unsound, wrong, wrongful, …
- مُفْسِدُون—
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7فَسَدَتِ · أَفْسَدَ · فَسَّدَ
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 يَفْعُلُ (a – u; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
- فَسَدَتِit and he was, or became, bad, evil, corrupt, unsound, wrong, wrongful, …LaneForm IQurʾān ×3Lane
- أَفْسَدَhe, or it, made, or rendered, bad, evil, corrupt, unsound, wrong, wrongful, …LaneForm IVQurʾān ×15library ×4Lane
- فَسَّدَLane: see Form IVForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- فَاسَدَhe became at variance with himLaneForm IIILaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns3فَسَاد · إفْسَاد · تَفْسِيد
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- فَسَادbadness, evilness, corruptness, unsoundness, wrongness, wrongfulness, …LaneForm I · Lane: inf. n.Qurʾān ×11library ×6Lane
- إفْسَادForm IV · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- تَفْسِيدForm IV · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles2مُفْسِد · فَاسِد
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُفْسِدactive, Form IVQurʾān ×21
- فَاسِدbad, evil, corrupt, unsound, wrong, wrongful, improper, unrighteous, wicked, …Laneactive, Form Ilibrary ×2LaneIbn Fāris
Place, time and instrument1مَفْسَدَة
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مَفْسَدَةnoun of place (with -a)Lane
Intensives, qualities and the elative2فَسِيد · أَفْسَد
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 16 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: مَفْسَدَة, noun of place (with -a) (Lane)
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-fasād (الفساد): the opposite of righteousness/soundness (al-ṣalāḥ).
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 · 393Fasada (فسد) the thing — yafsudu, fasādan (فسادا) — so it is fāsid (فاسد), and a people are fasdā (فسدى), just as they said sāqiṭ (ساقط) / saqṭā (سقطى) [as a broken plural pattern].
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters fāʾ, sīn, and dāl form a single [root] meaning: fasada (فسد) the thing corrupted/spoiled, yafsudu, fasādan wa-fusūdan (فسادا وفسودا), and it is fāsid (فاسد) and fasīd (فسيد).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-fasād (الفساد): the departure of a thing from moderation/balance, whether that departure be small or great;
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-fasād (الفساد): the opposite of al-ṣalāḥ (الصلاح).
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 definitions4 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الفاسد
هو الصحيح بأصله لا بوصفه، ويفيد الملك عند اتصال الفيض به، حتى لو اشترى عبدا بخمر وقبضه وأعتقه يعتق، وعند الشافعي: لا فرق بين الفاسد والباطل.
Al-fāsid (الفاسد): that which is sound (ṣaḥīḥ) in its essence (aṣl) but not in its attribute (waṣf); it produces ownership (milk) once the [transactional] effect (fayḍ) attaches to it — so that if one buys a slave with wine, takes possession of him, and frees him, the emancipation takes effect. According to al-Shāfiʿī, there is no difference between al-fāsid (الفاسد) [voidable] and al-bāṭil (الباطل) [void]. AI
الفاسد
ما كان مشروعا في نفسه فاسد المعنى من وجه الملازمة، وما ليس بمشروع إتيانه بحكم الحال مع تصور الانفصال في الجملة، كالبيع عند أذان الجمعة.
Al-fāsid (الفاسد): that which is legally prescribed (mashrūʿ) in itself but is corrupt in meaning (fāsid al-maʿnā) from the aspect of necessary concomitance (mulāzama); [as opposed to] that whose performance is not legally prescribed due to the circumstances (bi-ḥukm al-ḥāl), while [still] admitting of separability in general — such as a sale [conducted] at the call to Friday prayer. AI
الفساد
زوال الصورة عن المادة بعد أن كانت حاصلة، والفساد عند الفقهاء ما كان مشروعا بأصله غير مشروع بوصفه، وهو مرادف للبطلان عند الشافعي، وقسم ثالث مباين للصحة والبطلان عندنا.
Al-fasād (الفساد): the departure of the [substantial] form from the matter after it had been present; among the jurists, al-fasād is that which is legally prescribed in its essential basis (aṣl) but not legally prescribed in its attribute (waṣf). It is synonymous with al-buṭlān (البطلان) [nullity/voidness] according to al-Shāfiʿī, but according to us [the Ḥanafīs] it is a third category, distinct from both validity (ṣiḥḥa) and voidness (buṭlān). AI
فساد الوضع
هو عبارة عن كون العلة معتبرة في نقيض الحكم بالنص أو الإجماع، مثل تعليل أصحاب الشافعي لإيجاب الفرقة بسبب إسلام أحد الزوجين.
Fasād al-waḍʿ (فساد الوضع) [corruption of the [legal] arrangement]: an expression for the [ratio legis] cause (ʿilla) being reckoned as [indicating] the opposite of the [intended] ruling, [as established] by text or consensus — such as the Shāfiʿī jurists' reasoning that the conversion of one of the spouses to Islam necessitates separation. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ف س د
الفاء والسين والدال كلمة واحدة فسد الشيء يفسد فسادا وفسودا وهو فاسد وفسيد
F-s-d is a single word; 'fasada al-shayʾ yafsudu fasādan wa fusūdan,' and it is 'fāsid' and 'fasīd'. 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
- فfāʾlower lip and upper teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- سsīntongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- دdāltongue-tip, roots of the teeth · voiced, stopSīb. · 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 ↗
س
ومما بين طرف اللسان وفويق الثنايا مخرج الزاي، والسين، والصاد
From between the tip of the tongue and just above the front teeth is the place of the zāy, the sīn and the ṣād. Sībawayh, line 26560 ↗
ومما بين الثنايا وطرف اللسان، مخرج الصاد والزاي والسين
From between the front teeth and the tip of the tongue is the place of the ṣād, the zāy and the sīn. Ibn Jinnī, line 983 ↗
د
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 ↗
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 2582س
Level of existence: ما ظهر في الماء · what appears in water
Divine Name: المحيي · al-Muḥyī, the Life-Giver
Lunar mansion: النعائم · al-Naʿāʾim
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62110Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
السين والشين فطبعهما الحرارة واليبوسة
Sīn and shīn: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2581د
Level of existence: السماء الدنيا · the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā)
Divine Name: المبين · the Clarifier (al-Mubīn)
Lunar mansion: الأكليل · al-Iklīl
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64682Spheres 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 2582Meaning 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.
س
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء المليح الذي من طبعه الرقة.
It is an indication of the comely thing whose nature is delicacy.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء القبيح الخشن، أو إشارة إلى سواد حسا ومعنى.
It is an indication of the ugly, rough thing, or of blackness, sensible and figurative.
With kasra ـِ
وبالكسر إشارة إلى الشيء الطابع وتكون الإشارة منه.
With kasra it is an indication of the impressing/stamping thing, and the indication proceeds from it.
د
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى خارج عن الذات.
It is an indication of something external to the self.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى ما هو قليل أو قبيح ومعه غضب فيهما.
It is an indication of what is small or ugly, accompanied by anger in both cases.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما في الذات أو إلى ما هو داخل عليها أو إلى ما هو قريب منها.
It is an indication of what is in the self, or what is entering upon it, or what is near to it.
Two-letter nucleus9 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterف س
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 25069 ↗
- فسطالفاء والسين والطاء كلمتان متباينتان فالفسيط ثفروق التمرة ويقال قلامة الظفر والفسطاط الجماعة وفي الحديث ( إن يد الله تعالى على الفسطاط ) وبذلك سمي الفL25070
- فسقالفاء والسين والقاف كلمة واحدة وهي الفسق وهو الخروج عن الطاعة تقول العرب فسقت الرطبة عن قشرها إذا خرجت حكاه الفراء ويقولون إن الفأرة فويسقة وجاء هذا فQ 54 · L25072
- فسلالفاء والسين واللام أصل صحيح يدل على ضعف وقلةL25076
- فسأالفاء والسين والهمزةL25078
- فسجالفاء والسين والجيم كلمة واحدة يقولون قلوص فاسجة إذا أعجلها الفحل فضربها قبل وقت المضرب ويقال بل هي الحائل السمينةL25081
- فسحالفاء والسين والحاء كلمة واحدة تدل على سعة واتساعQ 3 · L25083
- فسخالفاء والسين والخاء كلمة تدل على نقص شيءL25084
- فسدالفاء والسين والدال كلمة واحدة فسد الشيء يفسد فسادا وفسودا وهو فاسد وفسيدQ 50 · L25086
- فسرالفاء والسين والراء كلمة واحدة تدل على بيان شيء وإيضاحهQ 1 · L25088
In the sister scriptsHebrew פ ס/ש דSyriac ܦ ܣ/ܫ ܕ
| Arabic | ف س د |
| Hebrew | פ ס/ש ד |
| Syriac | ܦ ܣ/ܫ ܕ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩰 𐩯/𐩦 𐩵 |
| Phoenician | 𐤐 𐤎/𐤔 𐤃 |
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 already glosses fasād simply as the antonym of ṣalāḥ, with the paired verbs fasada/afsadahu.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already glosses fasād simply as the antonym of ṣalāḥ, with the paired verbs fasada/afsadahu. Ibn Fāris confirms a single unitary root-sense: fasada yafsudu fasādan wa-fusūdan. Al-Jawharī records competing aorist vowels (yafsudu/yafsidu) and a usage peculiarity: Arabic lacks a reflexive infasada, only the transitive causative afsadtuhu, plus the rare broken plural fasdā and adjective fasīd. Al-Rāghib sharpens this philosophically: fasād is any departure, great or small, from iʿtidāl (equilibrium) and istiqāma (rectitude), applying it to nafs, body, and external things across a run of Quranic citations. Ibn Manẓūr adds the social extension tafāsud al-qawm, 'to sever kinship ties,' and Lane consolidates the morphology, noting fasada (aor. -u-) as the well-known form.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- Lane, Lexicon, s.v. فسد
Letters & soundAl-Dabbāgh's letter-values sit uneasily with fasād's own meaning: fatḥa-ف negates foulness in a thing whose genus is known for foulness, س marks the comely and delicate, د marks what is external to the self — a combination that, if anything, points away from corruption, worth flagging as tension rather than smoothed over.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Dabbāgh's letter-values sit uneasily with fasād's own meaning: fatḥa-ف negates foulness in a thing whose genus is known for foulness, س marks the comely and delicate, د marks what is external to the self — a combination that, if anything, points away from corruption, worth flagging as tension rather than smoothed over. Ibn ʿArabī's cosmological correspondence table assigns ف to the angels, س to what appears upon water, د to the lowest heaven, a scheme internal to his own cosmology rather than a semantic derivation of the word. Mainstream historical linguistics treats such letter-symbolism as at most suggestive, with no accepted phonosemantic law governing Arabic root-formation.
Draws on: dabbagh · akbari198
Root structureIbn Fāris treats ف س د as a single, non-composite root meaning 'to spoil, depart from soundness.' Its chapter-neighbours in ف س include fasaqa, glossed as khurūj ʿan al-ṭāʿa ('going out from obedience'), and fasakha, 'diminution of a thing' — both sharing with fasada a sense of falling away from an original sound state, though Ibn Fāris himself asserts no etymological link.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris treats ف س د as a single, non-composite root meaning 'to spoil, depart from soundness.' Its chapter-neighbours in ف س include fasaqa, glossed as khurūj ʿan al-ṭāʿa ('going out from obedience'), and fasakha, 'diminution of a thing' — both sharing with fasada a sense of falling away from an original sound state, though Ibn Fāris himself asserts no etymological link. Among permutations of the same three letters, safada is explicitly noted as containing two unrelated senses only possibly joined by ishtiqāq, sadafa denotes covering one thing over another, and fadasa/dafasa/dasafa are unattested. Any resonance between fasada and fasaqa belongs to Ibn Jinnī's theory of greater derivation, not to Ibn Fāris's own argument, and should be read as juxtaposition only.
Draws on: Ibn Fāris · nucleusSiblings · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for f-s-d has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for f-s-d has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez; the comparative lexica do not offer a matching root with this sense. The word also does not show the phonological or semantic profile of a loanword from any of these languages. It is best treated, on present evidence, as an Arabic-internal formation, consistent with Ibn Fāris's presentation of it as a single, self-contained root.
Draws on: comparative
Quranic exegesisAt 2:11–12 al-Ṭabarī identifies the mufsidūn as the munāfiqūn, who claim iṣlāḥ while their disbelief and sedition constitute fasād;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 2:11–12 al-Ṭabarī identifies the mufsidūn as the munāfiqūn, who claim iṣlāḥ while their disbelief and sedition constitute fasād; al-Zamakhsharī stresses the irony of people calling their own corruption reform. At 21:22 ('law kāna fīhimā ālihatun illā Allāhu la-fasadatā') al-Rāzī builds the classical kalām proof against polytheism, the burhān al-tamānuʿ: competing divine wills would necessarily corrupt cosmic order, so tawḥīd is demonstrated by the absence of fasād in creation. Al-Rāghib reads 30:41 ('ẓahara al-fasādu fī l-barri wa-l-baḥri') as cosmic disorder caused by human moral fasād, linking the root's physical and ethical senses.
Draws on: tabari · zamakhshari · razi · mufradat
Philosophy & kalāmFasād is paired with kawn (coming-to-be) as the Arabic rendering of Aristotle's Peri Geneseōs kai Phthoras, transmitted as Kitāb al-Kawn wa-l-Fasād and studied by al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Ibn Rushd.well attested
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Fasād is paired with kawn (coming-to-be) as the Arabic rendering of Aristotle's Peri Geneseōs kai Phthoras, transmitted as Kitāb al-Kawn wa-l-Fasād and studied by al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Ibn Rushd. In this technical usage fasād denotes the corruption or passing-away of a compound substance, the terminus of substantial change opposite to kawn, treated as a necessary feature of the sublunary world of generation. Avicenna situates kawn wa-fasād within his account of matter and form, where compounds undergo fasād because their form is not identical with their existence, making the term central to falsafa's account of contingency in the physical realm.
Draws on: falsafa
Akbarian readingIn the Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī glosses the angels' protest 'a-tajʿalu fīhā man yufsidu fīhā' as spoken 'min ḥaythu al-nashʾa,' from the standpoint proper to their own mode of origination, and identifies the fasād they warn against as nothing other than nizāʿ, contention.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In the Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī glosses the angels' protest 'a-tajʿalu fīhā man yufsidu fīhā' as spoken 'min ḥaythu al-nashʾa,' from the standpoint proper to their own mode of origination, and identifies the fasād they warn against as nothing other than nizāʿ, contention. He then notes the irony directly: that very nizāʿ 'is exactly what occurred from them' — the angels' objecting speech-act is itself an instance of the contentious fasād they impute to Adam. The lens is thus self-referential: fasād here names a mode of relation (strife) that the speaker, in naming it in another, simultaneously enacts.
Draws on: fassAdam
- Faṣṣ Ādam, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
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