Root · 10 in the Quran · 53 in 13 texts of the library
قهرa sound root denoting overpowering together with elevation. (root qhr)
القاف والهاء والراء كلمة صحيحة تدل على غلبة وعلو
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ق ه ر that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
14 words3 verbs1 verbal noun2 participles2 intensives and elatives4 other nouns1 plural1 relative or abstract
- قَاهِرoverpowering
- قَهَّارconquering; vanquishing (God)
- قَهْرsubjugation; coercion
- قَهَرَhe overcame, conquered, subdued, subjected, subjugated, overbore, …
- مَقْهُورtwo
The whole family7 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs3قَهَرَ · أَقْهَرَ · اِنْقَهَرَ
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.”)
Verbal nouns1قَهْر
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- قَهْرsubjugation; coercionautoForm I · Lane: inf. n.library ×12LaneIbn Fāris
Participles2قَاهِر · مَقْهُور
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- قَاهِرoverpoweringautoactive, Form IQurʾān ×3library ×11Ibn Fāris
- مَقْهُورtwoautopassive, Form Ilibrary ×2
Intensives, qualities and the elative2قَهَّار · أَقْهَر
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- قَهَّارconquering; vanquishing (God)autointensive (faʿʿāl)Qurʾān ×6library ×3Lane
- أَقْهَرmore, and most, subduingLaneelative or colour adjective (afʿal)LaneIbn Fāris
Other nouns4قَاهر · قُهْر · قُهَرَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals1قَاهِرُون
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- قَاهِرُونplural of overpoweringfrom the singularsound plural of قَاهِرQurʾān ×1
Relative and abstract1قَهْرِيّ
-iyy relates a thing to its source; -iyya makes an abstract noun.grammar →
- قَهْرِيّforced; compulsoryautorelative adjective (-iyy)library ×2
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
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 · 170Allah is al-Qāhir (القاهر) and al-Qahhār (القهار) [the Overpowering, the All-Compelling].
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 · 393Qaharahu qahran (قهره قهرا): he overcame him (ghalabahu).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters qāf, hā', and rā' form a sound root indicating overcoming (ghalaba) and superiority/dominance ('uluww).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-qahr (القهر): overcoming (al-ghalaba) and subjugating/humiliating (al-tadhlīl) together, and it is used for each of the two [individually as well].
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-qahr (القهر): overcoming (al-ghalaba) and seizing from above (al-akhdh min fawq).
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic below
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ق ه ر
القاف والهاء والراء كلمة صحيحة تدل على غلبة وعلو
q-h-r: a sound word indicating overpowering and ascendancy. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×10
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
- قqāffar back of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- هhāʾdeep in the throat · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- رrāʾtip of the tongue, near the nūn · 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
ق
ومن أقصى اللسان وما فوقه من الحنك الأعلى مخرج القاف
From the furthest part of the tongue and the upper palate above it is the place of the qāf. Sībawayh, line 26550 ↗
ومما فوق ذلك من أقصى اللسان، مخرج القاف
From above that, at the furthest part of the tongue, is the place of the qāf. Ibn Jinnī, line 972 ↗
ه
فأقصاها مخرجا: الهمزة والهاء والألف
The furthest of them [the three in the throat] in place: the hamza, the hāʾ and the alif. Sībawayh, line 26548 ↗
فأولها من أسفله وأقصاه، مخرج الهمزة والألف والهاء، هكذا يقول سيبويه
The first of them [in the throat], from its lowest and furthest part, is the place of the hamza, the alif and the hāʾ: so Sībawayh says. Ibn Jinnī, line 965 ↗
ر
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا لانحرافه إلى اللام مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26557–26558 ↗
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا، لانحرافه إلى اللام، مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, lines 980–981 ↗
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
ق
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 2582ه
Level of existence: أبتداء العالم · the beginning of the world
Divine Name: البديع · the Originator (who creates without prior model)
Lunar mansion: الشرطين · al-Sharaṭān (the Two Signs), first of daily time, when the sun is in Aries
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 66017Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
وإلا الهاء والهمزة فإنهما باردتان رطبتان
And except hāʾ and hamza, for these two are cold and moist.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2583ر
Level of existence: السماء الخامسة · the fifth heaven
Divine Name: المصور · the Form-Giver (al-Muṣawwir)
Lunar mansion: الغفر · al-Ghafr
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64675Spheres 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
ق
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى حيازة الخيرات أو إلى جميع الأنوار.
It is an indication of the acquisition of goods, or of all lights.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى النشأة الأصلية أو العلم القديم وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the original creation, or eternal knowledge, and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذل.
It is an indication of abasement.
ه
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الرحمة الطاهرة التي لا نهاية لها.
It is pure mercy that has no end.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم من أسمائه تعالى.
It is one of the names of God, Exalted is He.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الخير الذي يخرج من ذوات المخلوقات.
It is an indication of the good that issues from the selves of created beings.
ر
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الخيرات الظاهرة والباطنة.
It is an indication of all goods, outward and inward.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الواحد في نفسه وهو ظاهر.
It is an indication of the one in itself, and it is manifest.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي فيه الروح وليس من بني آدم، أو إشارة إلى الروح نفسها.
It is an indication of a thing that has spirit in it but is not of the children of Adam, or an indication of the spirit itself.
Two-letter nucleus6 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterق ه
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 25707 ↗
- قهبالقاف والهاء والباء أصيل يدل على لون من الألوان يقولون القهبة بياض تعلوه حمرة والقهب من ولد البقرة ما يكون لونه كذا والقهب الجبل العظيم والأقهبان الفيL25715
- قهدالقاف والهاء والدال كلمة واحدة يقولون القهد من ولد الضأن يضرب لونه إلى البياضL25719
- قهرالقاف والهاء والراء كلمة صحيحة تدل على غلبة وعلوQ 10 · L25722
- قهزالقاف والهاء والزاء كلمة يقولون القهز ثياب مرعزي يخالطها حرير وبها يشبه الشعر اللينL25730
- قهسالقاف والهاء والسين كلمات إن صحت يقولون جاء يتقهوس إذا جاء منحنيا يضطرب وهذا ممكن أن يكون هاؤه زائدة كأنه يتقوس ويقولون القهوسة السرعة والقهوس الرجل اL25734
- قهلالقاف والهاء واللام كلمة تدل على قشف وسوء حالL25738
In the sister scriptsHebrew ק ה רSyriac ܩ ܗ ܪ
| Arabic | ق ه ر |
| Hebrew | ק ה ר |
| Syriac | ܩ ܗ ܪ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩤 𐩠 𐩧 |
| Phoenician | 𐤒 𐤄 𐤓 |
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) grounds qahr as a divine epithet (al-Qāhir, al-Qahhār) and glosses the root as ghalaba ('overpowering') joined with al-akhdh min fawq ('seizing from above'), imagining dominance spatially as height over the vanquished.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl (al-ʿAyn) grounds qahr as a divine epithet (al-Qāhir, al-Qahhār) and glosses the root as ghalaba ('overpowering') joined with al-akhdh min fawq ('seizing from above'), imagining dominance spatially as height over the vanquished. Al-Jawharī (al-Ṣiḥāḥ) keeps ghalaba as the base sense of qahara but shows aqhara is estative rather than causative — the line on Ḥuṣayn, 'ammsā Ḥuṣaynun qad udhilla wa uqhirā,' means 'was found humiliated and overpowered,' not 'was made so by the speaker.' Ibn Fāris (Maqāyīs) narrows the root to one aṣl, ghalaba wa ʿuluww, citing the same verse and treating qahara al-laḥm (meat boiled till its juices run out) as the same image of something forced under pressure. Al-Rāghib (al-Mufradāt) splits qahr into two components usable separately, ghalaba and tadhlīl ('subjugation'), and reads fa-lā taqhar (93:9) through the second alone — lā tudhallil, 'do not humiliate' the orphan. Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān) synthesizes Khalīl and Jawharī and adds al-Azharī's theological gloss: God 'qahara khalqahu bi-sulṭānihi wa qudratihi,' directing creation as He willed, willingly or unwillingly.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn, root q-h-r
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root q-h-r
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root q-h-r
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, q-h-r
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, q-h-r
Letters & soundAl-Dabbāgh's letter-values read qāf as 'the acquisition of goods, or of all lights,' hāʾ as 'pure mercy that has no end,' and rāʾ as 'an indication of all goods, outward and inward' — a combination pointing toward mercy and provision rather than domination.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Dabbāgh's letter-values read qāf as 'the acquisition of goods, or of all lights,' hāʾ as 'pure mercy that has no end,' and rāʾ as 'an indication of all goods, outward and inward' — a combination pointing toward mercy and provision rather than domination. Ibn ʿArabī's akbarī table assigns hāʾ to 'the beginning of the world' and rāʾ to 'the fifth heaven,' cosmological rather than moral associations. The mismatch with qahr's harsh sense should be registered honestly: this kind of sound-symbolism is retrospective, fitted after the fact to whatever word is given, and mainstream linguistics treats it as suggestive at most.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
- al-Dabbāgh, letter values (fatḥa series)
- Ibn ʿArabī, akbarī letter correspondences (table, p.198)
Root structureIbn Fāris places qahr among the ق-ه cluster with qahb (a whitish-red color, or a mountain/young cow of that hue), qahd (a lamb inclining to white), qahz (a silk-wool fabric), qahs (to walk stooped, or hasten), and qahl (roughness, bad state) — a set that shares no obvious meaning with qahr beyond the first two radicals, and Ibn Fāris does not try to unify it.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris places qahr among the ق-ه cluster with qahb (a whitish-red color, or a mountain/young cow of that hue), qahd (a lamb inclining to white), qahz (a silk-wool fabric), qahs (to walk stooped, or hasten), and qahl (roughness, bad state) — a set that shares no obvious meaning with qahr beyond the first two radicals, and Ibn Fāris does not try to unify it. More suggestive is the transposition r-h-q, equally attested (10 occurrences) and glossed as two close senses, ghishyān al-shayʾ al-shayʾ ('one thing overtaking/enveloping another') and al-ʿajala wa-l-taʾkhīr ('haste and delay'); rahaqahu al-amr, 'the matter overtook him,' sits close to qahara-hu, 'he overpowered him,' as if the same three letters, reordered, still orbit an image of being overtaken from outside. This is offered as a juxtaposition of the kind Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar) invites, not as an established etymology.
Draws on: maqayis nucleus · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, nucleus q-h and permutation r-h-q
- Wiktionary Arabic root appendix ق-ه-ر (link not verified)
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for q-h-r has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for q-h-r has been identified in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez, or Old South Arabian. The semantic field of overpowering/subjugating is covered in those languages by unrelated roots (e.g. Hebrew √gbr, √kbš). There is no basis for treating qahr as a loanword; it appears to be native triliteral Arabic vocabulary.
Draws on: comparative check
Quranic exegesisAl-Ṭabarī reads a-arbābun mutafarriqūna khayrun ami Allāhu al-wāḥidu al-qahhār (12:39) and al-wāḥid al-qahhār (13:16) as naming God's total subjection of all created things, against the powerless multiplicity of idols.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Al-Ṭabarī reads a-arbābun mutafarriqūna khayrun ami Allāhu al-wāḥidu al-qahhār (12:39) and al-wāḥid al-qahhār (13:16) as naming God's total subjection of all created things, against the powerless multiplicity of idols. Al-Zamakhsharī, on wa-huwa al-qāhiru fawqa ʿibādihi (6:18) and fawqahum qāhirūn (7:127), insists fawqa is a metaphor of power and rank, not location — qahr is the servants' total subordination under His command. Al-Rāzī develops al-Qahhār as expressing that God's power admits no resisting contrary agent, connecting it to kalām debates over qudra and jabr. Al-Rāghib treats fa-ammā al-yatīma fa-lā taqhar (93:9) as the exception where qahr must mean tadhlīl, 'humiliation,' since the orphan is already powerless — a reading later commentators generally follow.
Draws on: tabari · zamakhshari · razi · raghib
Illuminationist readingIn Suhrawardī's Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq, qahr (domination) and maḥabba/ʿishq (love, yearning) are the two fundamental relations structuring the hierarchy of lights: each subordinate light stands in qahr toward what is beneath it and in love toward the light above from which it receives its being.plausible
The word in Suhrawardī's philosophy of light.
In Suhrawardī's Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq, qahr (domination) and maḥabba/ʿishq (love, yearning) are the two fundamental relations structuring the hierarchy of lights: each subordinate light stands in qahr toward what is beneath it and in love toward the light above from which it receives its being. Qahr here is not violence but ontological priority and illuminative sovereignty (qahhāriyya), the vertical order of the cosmos of lights organized by this qahr/maḥabba polarity. This recasts Ibn Fāris's core sense, ghalaba wa ʿuluww, as a metaphysical rather than moral or political relation.
Draws on: Suhrawardi Hikmat al-Ishraq
- Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq (general doctrine of qahr/maḥabba among lights)
Reference