Root · 1 in the Quran · 7 in 6 texts of the library
فننIbn Fāris gives two sound roots: al-taʿniyah/al-iṭrād — to drive hard, weary, or delay; a … (root fnn)
الفاء والنون أصلان صحيحان يدل أحدهما علي تعنية والآخر على ضرب من الضروب في الأشياء كلها
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ف ن ن that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
15 words5 verbs3 participles2 intensives and elatives5 other nouns
- أَفْنَان—
- فَنَّhe drove away him, or the camels
- فَنَّنَhe made the men, or people, to consist of different sorts, or of a medley, …
- تَفَنَّنَit was, or became, of various sorts, or modes, or manners
- اِفْتَنَّhe began, commenced, or entered upon, various sorts of speech
The whole family4 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs5فَنَّ · فَنَّنَ · تَفَنَّنَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- فَنَّhe drove away him, or the camelsLaneForm ILane
- فَنَّنَhe made the men, or people, to consist of different sorts, or of a medley, …LaneForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- تَفَنَّنَit was, or became, of various sorts, or modes, or mannersLaneForm VLane
- اِفْتَنَّhe began, commenced, or entered upon, various sorts of speechLaneForm VIIILane
- اِسْتَفَنَّhe incited, urged, or made, him to practise various sorts, or modes, or …LaneForm XLane
Participles3مَفْنُون · مُتَفَنِّن · مُفَنَّن
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative2فَنَّان · فَنِين
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
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-fann (الفن): the state/condition.
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-fann (الفن): singular of al-funūn (الفنون), meaning 'the kinds.' Al-afānīn (الأفانين): 'the styles,' being the kinds and ways of speech.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters fā' and nūn form two sound roots: one indicates exertion/wearying (ta'niya), and the other a kind among the various kinds of things.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-fanan (الفنن): the branch with fresh, tender leaves;
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-fann (الفن): singular of al-funūn (الفنون), meaning 'the kinds.' Al-fann also means 'the state/condition.' Al-fann: 'a kind of a thing,' plural afnān (أفنان) and funūn (فنون);
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 their orders. Choose one.
ف ن ن
الفاء والنون أصلان صحيحان يدل أحدهما علي تعنية والآخر على ضرب من الضروب في الأشياء كلها
f-n-n: two sound roots, one indicating causing hardship, and the other indicating a kind among all kinds of things. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Quran ×1
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
- نnūntip 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
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 ↗
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 ↗
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
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 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 2580ن
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
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.
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.
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 nucleus4 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterف ن
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 24481 ↗
- فنىالفاء والنون والحرف المعتل هذا باب لا تنقاس كلمة ولم يبن على قياس معلوم وقد ذكرنا ما جاء فيهQ 1 · L24482
- فندالفاء والنون والدال أصل صحيح يدل على ثقل وشدة ويقال بعضه على بعضQ 1 · L24489
- فنعالفاء والنون والعين أصل صحيح يدل على طيب وكثرة وكرم فالفنع الكرم ويقال إن نشر المسك فنع ويقال نشر الثناء الحسن ويقال مال ذو فنع أي كثرةL24496
- فنكالفاء والنون والكاف كلمتانL24503
In the sister scriptsHebrew פ נ נSyriac ܦ ܢ ܢ
| Arabic | ف ن ن |
| Hebrew | פ נ נ |
| Syriac | ܦ ܢ ܢ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩰 𐩬 𐩬 |
| Phoenician | 𐤐 𐤍 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 lexiconAl-Khalīl (al-ʿAyn) glosses al-fann as al-ḥāl and al-funūn as al-ḍurūb, 'varieties,' as in raʿaynā funūn al-nabāt and aṣabnā funūn al-amwāl, 'we grazed on varied plants,' 'we came into varied kinds of wealth';well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl (al-ʿAyn) glosses al-fann as al-ḥāl and al-funūn as al-ḍurūb, 'varieties,' as in raʿaynā funūn al-nabāt and aṣabnā funūn al-amwāl, 'we grazed on varied plants,' 'we came into varied kinds of wealth'; he also gives afānīn al-shabāb, 'the first flush of youth,' and yufannin al-kalām, 'he branches his speech from one fann to another,' plus al-fanan, 'branch,' pl. afnān. Al-Jawharī (al-Ṣiḥāḥ) confirms funūn as anwāʿ, afānīn as asālīb 'styles' of speech, mutafannin as 'a man of many arts,' and iftanna fī ḥadīthihi as 'he brought forth afānīn,' comparable to ishtaqqa; he also records a homonymous fann, al-ṭard, 'driving away' (fanantu al-ibil, 'I drove the camels'), and afnān/afānīn as branches. Ibn Fāris (Maqāyīs) formalizes the split into two sound roots: taʿniyah, 'hard driving, wearying' (fannahu, 'he drove/wearied him'), and ḍarb min al-ḍurūb, 'a kind among kinds,' whence al-afānīn and al-fanan, 'branch,' citing Abū ʿUbayd's shajarah fannāʾ. Al-Rāghib (al-Mufradāt) narrows to al-fanan as the fresh green-leaved branch, pl. afnān, extended to 'a kind of a thing,' pl. funūn, and cites Q55:48 dhawātā afnān directly, glossing it as 'possessing branches,' with a secondary reading as 'possessing varied hues.' Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān al-ʿArab) restates the same cluster near-verbatim — fann as ḥāl, ḍarb, and anwāʿ, tafannun and iftanān as branching speech, citing Abū Dhuʾayb — while Lane preserves the older 'driving/wearying/delaying a debtor, or defrauding him' sense as still current in his sources, showing that the 'variety/branch' sense, though dominant by the classical period, did not fully displace the older one.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs al-Lughah · al-Mufradāt · Lisān al-ʿArab · Lane's Lexicon
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon
Letters & soundIn the Breath-letters scheme, fāʾ corresponds to the angels and nūn to the fourth heaven.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the Breath-letters scheme, fāʾ corresponds to the angels and nūn to the fourth heaven. Al-Dabbāgh reads fāʾ (fatḥah) as negating foulness in a thing whose genus is known for foulness — marking the thing as pure while its kind is not — and nūn as the good that dwells within the self, kindling there. One could read this against fann's later sense as a distinguished kind or genre singled out from an undifferentiated mass (fāʾ's purifying-distinction) and against al-fanan, the fresh green branch, as the self's inward kindling put forth outwardly (nūn); but this is a resonance offered by the letter-theorists, not a claim within historical linguistics, which does not treat individual consonants as bearers of stable meaning.
Draws on: Ibn ʿArabī, Breath-letters (Akbarī 198) · al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings
- Ibn ʿArabī, letters in the Breath (Akbarī 198)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter meanings
Root structureIbn Fāris's neighboring f-n chapters give: fny, an irregular chapter with no settled qiyās;uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's neighboring f-n chapters give: fny, an irregular chapter with no settled qiyās; fnd, 'heaviness and severity pressing upon something' (weakness of judgment, dotage); fnʿ, 'fragrance, abundance, generosity' (nashr al-misk fanaʿ, musk's scent is abundant/fragrant; māl dhū fanaʿ, ample wealth); and fnk, two unrelated words. Set beside these, fnn's own bifurcation — 'to drive hard/weary' versus 'a kind, a branch' — sits within a family where the f-n base combined with a third radical repeatedly yields either a sense of pressure/severity (fnd) or of spreading-abundance (fnʿ, and perhaps fnn's branching-out). This patterning is a juxtaposition only, not a demonstrated shared etymon; Ibn Fāris treats each as a distinct root.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus siblings f-n
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix فنن (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate for fann/fanan in the sense of 'branch' or 'kind, variety' has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate for fann/fanan in the sense of 'branch' or 'kind, variety' has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez. The bifurcation into 'drive hard/weary' and 'kind/branch' that Ibn Fāris records appears to be an internal Arabic development rather than a reflex of a shared Proto-Semitic sense. The root is not a plausible loanword.
Draws on: comparative Semitic survey
Quranic exegesisAfnān occurs once, at Q55:48, describing the two paradise-gardens as dhawātā afnān.plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Afnān occurs once, at Q55:48, describing the two paradise-gardens as dhawātā afnān. Al-Ṭabarī takes afnān as ghuṣūn, the branches of trees, following the majority reading. Al-Zamakhsharī likewise glosses afnān as branches but notes the alternative that it means anwāʿ or alwān, 'kinds' or 'colors' — of fruit or of blessings — reflecting the root's own split sense between 'branch' and 'kind.' Al-Rāzī develops the branches-reading into an image of the gardens' luxuriant, shading canopy as part of their sensory description of paradise, and al-Rāghib's Mufradāt entry, cited above, explicitly glosses this verse, preferring 'branches' while registering the 'varied hues' reading as current.
Draws on: al-Ṭabarī · al-Zamakhsharī · al-Rāzī · al-Rāghib
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī writes that a certain matter is not known by the intellect through discursive speculative reasoning (naẓar fikrī);plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī writes that a certain matter is not known by the intellect through discursive speculative reasoning (naẓar fikrī); rather 'this fann of apprehension' (hādhā al-fann min al-idrāk) comes only through divine unveiling (kashf ilāhī), by which the origin of forms is known. Here fann functions as a technical marker for a distinct mode or kind of cognition — unveiling-knowledge set apart from, and irreducible to, rational speculation — continuing the lexicographers' sense of fann as a discrete ḍarb or variety, now applied to modes of knowing rather than to branches or genres of speech. No separate Iṣṭilāḥ definition of the term is given in the supplied material.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam excerpt
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference