Root · 4 in the Quran · 44 in 15 texts of the library
ميزTo separate or set apart one thing from another, and to effect that separation. (root myz)
الميم والياء والزاء أصل صحيح يدل على تزيل شيء من شيء وتزييله وميزته تمييزا ومزته ميزا وامتازوا تميز بعضهم من بعض ويكاد …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of م ي ز that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
16 words9 verbs3 verbal nouns2 participles1 intensive or elative1 other noun
- تَمَيَّزُbe distinguished; stand out
- تَمْيِيزdistinction; differentiation
- مَازَhe put it, or set it, apart, away, or aside
- مُتَمَيِّزdistinguished; outstanding
- مَيَّزَdistinguish; differentiate
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs9مَازَ · تَمَيَّزُ · مَيَّزَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- مَازَhe put it, or set it, apart, away, or asideLaneForm IQurʾān ×2Lane
- تَمَيَّزُbe distinguished; stand outauto · Lane: see Form VIIIForm VQurʾān ×1library ×8LaneIbn Fāris
- مَيَّزَdistinguish; differentiateautoForm IIlibrary ×3Lane
- امْتَازُit was, or became, put, or set, apart, away, or asideLaneForm VIIIQurʾān ×1library ×1Lane
Verbal nouns3تَمْيِيز · تَمَيُّز · مَيْز
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَمْيِيزdistinction; differentiationautoForm II · Lane: inf. n.library ×8Lane
- تَمَيُّزstanding out; being distinguishedautoForm Vlibrary ×2Ibn Fāris
- مَيْزForm I · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles2مُتَمَيِّز · مُمَيِّز
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُتَمَيِّزdistinguished; outstandingautoactive, Form Vlibrary ×4
- مُمَيِّزdistinguishing, or discriminatingLaneactive, Form IVlibrary ×1Lane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 14 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 · 170[Al-mayz (الميز): distinguishing between things.
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 · 393'Miztu al-shay'a amīzuhu mayzan' (مزت الشئ أميزه ميزا): I set it apart and separated it.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395The letters mīm, yā', and zāy form a sound root indicating the separation (tazyīl - تزيل) of one thing from another, and its separating (tazyīluhu - تزييله).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-mayz (الميز) and al-tamyīz (التمييز): the separation between similar things.
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-mayz (الميز): distinguishing between things.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLane · 1876English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
E. W. Lane (d. 1876), An Arabic-English Lexicon. English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
Lane, Arabic-English Lexiconread Lane's entry online ↗
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
م ي ز
الميم والياء والزاء أصل صحيح يدل على تزيل شيء من شيء وتزييله وميزته تمييزا ومزته ميزا وامتازوا تميز بعضهم من بعض ويكاد يتميز غيظا أي يتقطع وانماز الشيء انفصل عن الشيء
m-y-z is a sound root indicating the separation of one thing from another. mīztuhu tamyīzan and miztuhu mayzan, and imtāzū means they separated from one another. yakādu yatamayyazu min al-ghayẓ means he is about to burst from rage, and inmāza al-shay' means the thing became detached. 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
- مmīmbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- زzāytongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiced, 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
م
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء، والميم، والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Sībawayh, line 26563 ↗
ومما بين الشفتين مخرج الباء والميم والواو
From between the two lips is the place of the bāʾ, the mīm and the wāw. Ibn Jinnī, line 986 ↗
ي
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26553 ↗
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى، مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 974 ↗
ز
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 ↗
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
م
Level of existence: الإنسان · the human being
Divine Name: الجامع · al-Jāmiʿ, the Gatherer
Lunar mansion: المؤخر · al-Muʾakhkhar
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62119Spheres 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 2582ي
Level of existence: السماء الأولى · The First Heaven
Divine Name: الرب · The Lord (al-Rabb)
Lunar mansion: الخرتان · al-Kharatān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64500Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
المرتبة العشرية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The tenfold rank: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2582ز
Level of existence: ما يظهر في ركن الهواء · what appears in the pillar (element) of air
Divine Name: الحي · the Living (al-Ḥayy)
Lunar mansion: الشولة · al-Shawla
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64951Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2570 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
منها دون الألف فطبعها الحرارة واليبوسة
[Zāy and lām] of it, excluding alif: their nature is heat and dryness.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2577Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
م
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي جميع المكونات.
It is all created beings.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العزيز القليل كماء العين، ومنه قيل مومو.
It is the precious, scarce thing, like the water of the eye; from it comes the expression 'mūmū'.
With kasra ـِ
فهي نور الذات ظاهرا كما في العين، وباطنا كما في القلب.
It is the light of the self, outwardly as in the eye and inwardly as in the heart.
ي
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي للنداء، وقد يؤكد بها.
It is for the vocative (calling), and it may be used for emphasis.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا يثبت كالبرق ونحوه.
It is an indication of the thing that does not remain fixed, like lightning and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي يستحيا به أو يستحيا منه كالعورة.
It is an indication of the thing that causes shame, or of which one is ashamed, like the private parts.
ز
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم للشيء الذي إذا دخل على الشيء ضره، وقال مرة: اسم للشيء وما يتحرز منه.
It is a name for the thing that harms another thing when it enters upon it. On one occasion he said: a name for the thing and what one guards against.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى القبيح الذي فيه ضرر كالكبائر.
It is an indication of the ugly thing that contains harm, such as the major sins.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى القبيح الذي لا ضرر فيه كالصغائر والشبهات والنجاسة.
It is an indication of the ugly thing that contains no harm, such as minor sins, doubtful matters and ritual impurity.
In the sister scriptsHebrew מ י זSyriac ܡ ܝ ܙ
| Arabic | م ي ز |
| Hebrew | מ י ז |
| Syriac | ܡ ܝ ܙ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩣 𐩺 𐩸 |
| Phoenician | 𐤌 𐤉 𐤆 |
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 lexiconIbn Fāris states the single root sense: separating one thing from another and effecting that separation (tazyīl).well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Ibn Fāris states the single root sense: separating one thing from another and effecting that separation (tazyīl). Al-Khalīl and al-Jawharī give the same core value, māza/mayyaza, 'he set apart, removed, separated,' with al-Jawharī adding the reflexive series infamāza, imtāza, tamayyaza, istamāza as synonyms and the idiom 'yakādu yatamayyazu min al-ghayẓ,' 'he all but bursts apart from rage'; Ibn Fāris cites the same idiom, plus a verse describing a snake's venom as having separated the skin of its head from the bone. Al-Rāghib narrows and deepens the sense: tamyīz specifically separates resembling things from one another (al-faṣl bayna al-mutashābihāt), and he extends the word to the rational faculty by which meanings are deduced, citing 8:37 for God's act of sifting; 'fulān lā tamyīza lahu' means 'so-and-so lacks discernment.' Ibn Manẓūr, citing Ibn Sīda, consolidates the physical sense and records Qurʾānic reading variants (yamīzu/yumayyizu), and Lane confirms 'to put apart, set aside, remove, or separate.'
Draws on: cayn · sihah · mufradat · Ibn Fāris · lisan · Lane · quran
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn, root ميز
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root ميز
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, root ميز
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root ميز
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root ميز
- Lane's Lexicon, ميز
- Wiktionary root appendix ↗
Letters & soundIn the given letter-scheme, mīm is tied to 'the human being,' yāʾ to 'the First Heaven,' and zāy to 'what appears in the pillar of air';speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In the given letter-scheme, mīm is tied to 'the human being,' yāʾ to 'the First Heaven,' and zāy to 'what appears in the pillar of air'; al-Dabbāgh reads mīm as all created beings, yāʾ as marking the vocative or emphasis, and zāy as naming a thing that harms upon entering, or a thing guarded against. Read speculatively, a word for sifting (ميز) sits suggestively on letters tied to creatures (mīm), an emphatic address (yāʾ), and something to be warded off (zāy), matching the Qurʾānic use for separating the wicked from the good. This is offered only as symbolic resonance; mainstream linguistics does not treat individual Arabic letters as fixed bearers of meaning, and no etymological claim is intended.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- Ibn ʿArabī, letters and the cosmic Breath (as tabulated)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings under fatḥa
Root structureNo nucleus-siblings are listed under this entry;uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
No nucleus-siblings are listed under this entry; the data given are the six permutations of م-ي-ز. Alongside ميز (separation) stands زيم, an independent root Ibn Fāris glosses as denoting gathering (tajammuʿ) — an apparent semantic inversion of the base root, noted here only as a juxtaposition. مزي is a separate attested root for excellence or superiority (mazīya), which Ibn Fāris explicitly notes forms no verb (lā yubnā minhu fiʿl), marking it morphologically apart from ميز despite sharing its letters. The remaining permutations, يمز، يزم، زمي, are unattested; Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation would set ميز/separating against زيم/gathering as a meaningful opposition within one set of consonants, though Ibn Fāris treats them as independent qiyāsāt.
Draws on: maqayis-permutations · khasais
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, roots ميز / مزي / زيم
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for the hollow root م-و-ز/م-ي-ز is established in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for the hollow root م-و-ز/م-ي-ز is established in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, or Geʿez; the ordinary separation-verbs in those languages (e.g. Hebrew bādal, Aramaic/Syriac praš) belong to different roots. The Arabic root shows normal internal weak-middle morphology (māza/yamīzu) consistent with native Arabic derivation, and there is no indication of loanword status.
Draws on: comparative
Quranic exegesisAt 8:37 and 3:179, li-yamīza Allāhu l-khabītha mina l-ṭayyib describes God's act of separating the corrupt from the good;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At 8:37 and 3:179, li-yamīza Allāhu l-khabītha mina l-ṭayyib describes God's act of separating the corrupt from the good; al-Ṭabarī reads this of hypocrites and disbelievers being sifted from the believers through trial (notably around Badr), and al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī likewise take the verse as God purifying the community's ranks so sincere faith is distinguished from hypocrisy, not a literal sorting of booty. At 36:59, wa-mtāzū l-yawma ayyuhā l-mujrimūn, al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī read the humiliating divine command on the Day of Resurrection for the guilty to separate themselves out from the righteous, a forced self-segregation within judgment. At 67:8, takādu tamayyazu mina l-ghayẓ, describes Hellfire almost bursting apart from fury at those cast into it; exegetes take this as vivid personification continuous with the root's older sense, already in Ibn Fāris and al-Jawharī, of rupturing from intense emotion. Al-Rāghib's gloss — separating things that resemble one another — is regularly invoked to explain the choice of tamyīz over a plainer verb of division: the wicked and the good are outwardly mixed until God's sifting act discloses the difference.
Draws on: quran · tabari · zamakhshari · razi · raghib
- al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, on 8:37 and 3:179
- al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, on 3:179, 36:59
- al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, on 8:37
- Quran 8:37 ↗
- Quran 3:179 ↗
- Quran 36:59 ↗
- Quran 67:8 ↗
Philosophy & kalāmTamyīz functions as a minor technical term for the faculty of discernment or reason in kalām and fiqh, following al-Rāghib's extension from the lexical base-sense: the rational power by which meanings and judgments are deduced ('fulān lā tamyīza lahu,' he lacks discernment).uncertain
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Tamyīz functions as a minor technical term for the faculty of discernment or reason in kalām and fiqh, following al-Rāghib's extension from the lexical base-sense: the rational power by which meanings and judgments are deduced ('fulān lā tamyīza lahu,' he lacks discernment). Jurists use sinn al-tamyīz, 'the age of discernment,' to mark the threshold of legal capacity in a minor. This is a secondary, lexicon-attested usage rather than a term with sustained independent treatment in Avicennan or Ghazālian systematic metaphysics.
Draws on: mufradat · fiqh-usage
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, root ميز
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses mutamayyiz for the differentiation of intelligible realities that remain aspects of a single reality: life (al-ḥayāh) and knowledge (al-ʿilm) are each 'an intelligible reality distinguished (mutamayyiza) from the other,' just as life is distinguished from the Living.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses mutamayyiz for the differentiation of intelligible realities that remain aspects of a single reality: life (al-ḥayāh) and knowledge (al-ʿilm) are each 'an intelligible reality distinguished (mutamayyiza) from the other,' just as life is distinguished from the Living. He extends this to the ground of individuation itself: 'though we share one reality that gathers us, we know with certainty that there is a differentiating factor by which individuals (al-ashkhāṣ) are distinguished (tamayyazat) from one another, without which there would be no multiplicity in the One.' Elsewhere he uses the same root for the creature's ontological distinction from its Originator — 'distinguished (mutamayyiz) from its Bringer-into-being by its poverty (iftiqār)' — even while having no share in essential necessity. Across these passages tamyīz names differentiation-within-unity: the operation by which a single reality (al-ḥaqīqa al-wāḥida) supports real multiplicity of aspects and individuals without ceasing to be one, a central move in Ibn ʿArabī's account of kathra fī l-waḥda.
Draws on: fassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference