Root · 20 in the Quran · 31 in 8 texts of the library
نزعNo Ibn Fāris excerpt is given for this root; per al-Khalīl and his successors, the core … (root nz)
English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ن ز ع that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
11 words3 verbs1 verbal noun1 participle4 other nouns2 plurals
- نَزَعَremove; eliminate
- تَنَازَعَcontend with each another; compete for
- نَازَعَ—
- مُنازِعstruggling; contending
- نَزَّاعَة—
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs3نَزَعَ · تَنَازَعَ · نَازَعَ
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 يَفْعِلُ (a – i; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- نَزَعَremove; eliminateautoForm IQurʾān ×10library ×4
- تَنَازَعَcontend with each another; compete forautoForm VIQurʾān ×7library ×2
- نَازَعَForm IIIQurʾān ×1library ×7
Verbal nouns1اِنْتِزاع
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- اِنْتِزاعremoval; eliminationautoForm VIIIlibrary ×1
Participles1مُنازِع
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُنازِعstruggling; contendingautoactive, Form IIIlibrary ×2
Other nouns4نَزَّاعَة · نازِعَة · نُزُوع
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- نَزَّاعَةnounQurʾān ×1
- نازِعَةtendencies; inclinationsautonounlibrary ×1
- نُزُوعstriving; endeavorautonounlibrary ×1
- نِزاعconflict; struggleautonounlibrary ×1
Plurals2نَازِعَات · نَوازِع
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- نَازِعَاتsound plural of نَازِعَةQurʾān ×1
- نَوازِعbroken plural of نازِعَةlibrary ×1
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 8 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 · 170nazaʿtu (نزعت) the thing: I pulled it out/uprooted it, anziʿuhu nazʿan (أنزعه نزعا);
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'I nazaʿtu (نزعت) the thing from its place', anziʿuhu nazʿan (أنزعه نزعا): I pulled it out.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Nazaʿa (نزع) a thing: he pulled it from its place, like nazʿ al-qaws (نزع القوس) [drawing the bow] from its grip;
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 · 711Nazaʿa (نزع) the thing - yanziʿuhu (ينزعه) - nazʿan (نزعا);
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.
ن ز ع
النون والزاء والعين أصل صحيح يدل على قلع شيء ونزعت الشيء من مكانه نزعا والمنزع الشديد النزع والمنزعة كالملعقة يكون مع مشتار العسل ونزع عن الأمر نزوعا تركه وشراب طيب المنزعة أي طيب مقطع الشرب والنزعة الموضع من رأس الأنزع …
n-z-ʿ is a sound root indicating the uprooting of something. Nazaʿtu al-shayʾ min makānihi nazʿan - I pulled the thing from its place. Al-minzaʿ is the one strong in pulling. Al-minzaʿa is like a spoon that is with the honey gatherer. Nazaʿa ʿan al-amr nuzūʿan - he abandoned the matter. A drink that is ṭayyib al-minzaʿa means pleasant at the end of drinking. Al-nazʿa is the place on the head of al-anzaʿ … AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×20
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
- نnūntip of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- زzāytongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiced, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- عʿaynmiddle of the throat · 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
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 ↗
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 ↗
ع
ومن أوسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26548–26549 ↗
ومن وسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 970 ↗
Sībawayh, al-Kitāb (ed. Hārūn) and Ibn Jinnī, Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb; OpenITI digital texts (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Full credits on each letter's page.
In the Breath of the All-MercifulIbn ʿArabī · metaphysics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ن
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 2580ز
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 2577ع
Level of existence: الطبيعة · Nature
Divine Name: الباطن · The Inward (al-Bāṭin)
Lunar mansion: الثريا · al-Thurayyā (the Pleiades)
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 63825Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 9 line 2572 ↗
Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
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.
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.
ع
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي اسم لقدوم أو رحيل.
It is a name for arrival or departure.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي اسم للساكن في الذات التي تقوم به.
It is a name for that which dwells in the self and by which the self subsists.
With kasra ـِ
فهي اسم لخبث الذات.
It is a name for the foulness of the self.
Two-letter nucleus10 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterن ز
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 31557 ↗
- نزغالنون والزاء والغين كلمة تدل على إفساد بين اثنين ونزغ بين القوم أفسد ذات بينهمQ 6 · L31575
- نزفالنون والزاء والفاء أصل يدل على نفاد شيء وانقطاع ونزف دمه خرج كله والسكران نزيف أي نزف عقلهQ 2 · L31578
- نزقالنون والزاء والقاف كلمة تدل على عجلةL31585
- نزكالنون والزاء والكاف أصيل يدل على طعن أو شبيه به منه النزك الطعن بالنيزك وهو الرمح القصير والنزك سوء الفعل والقول في الإنسان والطعن عليه وفي الحديث إن L31588
- نزلالنون والزاء واللام كلمة صحيحة تدل على هبوط شيء ووقوعه ونزل عن دابته نزولا ونزل المطر من السماء نزولا والنازلة الشديدة من شدائد الدهر تنزل والنزال في Q 293 · L31595
- نزهالنون والزاء والهاء كلمة تدل على بعد في مكان وغيره ورجل نزيه الخلق بعيد عن المطامع الدنيةL31607
- نزوالنون والزاء والحرف المعتل أصل صحيح يرجع إلى معنى واحد هو الوثبان والارتفاع والسموL31612
- نزبالنون والزاء والباء كلمةL31618
- نزحالنون والزاء والحاء كلمة تدل على بعد ونزحت الدار نزوحا بعدت وبلد نازح ومنه نزح الماء كأنه يباعد به عن قعر البئرL31620
- نزرالنون والزاء والراء أصيل يدل على قلة في الشيء ونزر الشيء نزارة وشيء نزر قليل وعطاء منزور مقلل وامرأة نزور قليلة الولدL31624
In the sister scriptsHebrew נ ז עSyriac ܢ ܙ ܥ
| Arabic | ن ز ع |
| Hebrew | נ ז ע |
| Syriac | ܢ ܙ ܥ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩬 𐩸 𐩲 |
| Phoenician | 𐤍 𐤆 𐤏 |
Letter for letter, by the regular sound correspondences of the Semitic languages (Arabic keeps several sounds the others merged). This shows how the root would be spelled; whether a related word exists is a separate question, answered in the Semitic lens. Where an Arabic sibilant (s, sh) continues two older sounds, both spellings are shown.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconAl-Khalīl gives the base sense as qalʿ, 'to pull out/uproot,' and extends it to nazaʿa fī l-qaws (drawing the bowstring), nazaʿa ʿan kadhā (to desist, kaffa), the throes of death (al-nazʿ, 'driving' toward death), and the soul's nizāʿ toward what it craves.well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives the base sense as qalʿ, 'to pull out/uproot,' and extends it to nazaʿa fī l-qaws (drawing the bowstring), nazaʿa ʿan kadhā (to desist, kaffa), the throes of death (al-nazʿ, 'driving' toward death), and the soul's nizāʿ toward what it craves. Al-Jawharī confirms this core—nazaʿa min makānihi = qalaʿahu—and adds longing (nazaʿa ilā ahlihi, 'he yearned for his people'), resemblance (nazaʿa ilā abīhi fī l-shabah, 'he took after his father'), and nazīʿ, 'a stranger, one uprooted from his people.' Al-Rāghib generalizes the physical sense—jadhb min maqarr, drawing a thing from its socket, as a bowstring from its notch—into the moral and eschatological register: removing rancor from the heart (7:43), and identifies al-nāziʿāt (79:1) as the angels who wrench souls from bodies. Ibn Manẓūr consolidates the tradition, preserving Sībawayh's distinction between nazaʿa (displacing something from its place, even forcibly) and intazaʿa (outright seizing), and the idiom fulān fī l-nazʿ, 'so-and-so is in the throes of dying.'
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · al-Mufradāt · Lisān al-ʿArab
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, s.v. نزع
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v. نزع
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, s.v. نزع
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. نزع
Letters & soundReading the radicals through the given correspondences: ن (the fourth heaven;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Reading the radicals through the given correspondences: ن (the fourth heaven; for al-Dabbāgh, the good that dwells and kindles within the self) is the locus disturbed; ز (what appears in the element of air; for al-Dabbāgh, the thing that harms on entering, or what one guards against) marks the moment of violent intrusion; ع (Nature; for al-Dabbāgh, 'a name for arrival or departure') closes the word on exactly the hinge نزع turns on—departure, whether of the soul, of sovereignty, or of a bowstring from its notch. This is suggestive sound-symbolism only; mainstream historical linguistics would treat any such fit as coincidental.
Draws on: akbari letter-heaven table · al-Dabbāgh
Root structureIbn Fāris places ن-ز in a chapter whose ز-permutations mostly denote sudden disruption: نزغ (sowing discord), نزف (draining/exhausting), نزق (rash haste), نزل (descent), نزو (leaping up), نزر (scantiness).plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris places ن-ز in a chapter whose ز-permutations mostly denote sudden disruption: نزغ (sowing discord), نزف (draining/exhausting), نزق (rash haste), نزل (descent), نزو (leaping up), نزر (scantiness). نزع's 'wrenching a thing from its seat' fits comfortably as another mode of forceful, boundary-crossing motion within this family. Among the permutations, عنز is independently attested with the sense 'withdrawal, setting apart' (tanaḥḥin wa-taʿazzul), a semantic echo of نزع's own separative core; زعن is attested but no gloss survives here. Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation would licence listening across نزع and عنز as the same letters in different order circling a shared notion of removal—a structural resonance, not a proven etymology.
Draws on: nucleus siblings · permutation table · greater derivation
- Wiktionary, Appendix:Arabic roots/ن ز ع ↗
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for ن-ز-ع is established.uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for ن-ز-ع is established. Akkadian nasāḫu, 'to tear out, uproot, deport,' is semantically close, but its consonants (n-s-ḫ) do not correspond by regular sound-law to Arabic ن-ز-ع—they align more properly with Arabic ن-س-خ (naskh); any resemblance to نزع is functional, not a demonstrated cognate. Hebrew and Aramaic have no widely accepted n-z-ʿ root with this meaning. The root is best treated as native Arabic with no established loan history.
Draws on: Akkadian comparison · absence of Hebrew cognate
- CAD N/2, s.v. nasāḫu
Quranic exegesisOn 3:26, 'tanziʿu l-mulka mimman tashāʾ' (Thou strippest sovereignty from whom Thou wilt), al-Ṭabarī reads nazʿ as God's total, irresistible removal of dominion, set against His giving (tuʾtī) it;well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
On 3:26, 'tanziʿu l-mulka mimman tashāʾ' (Thou strippest sovereignty from whom Thou wilt), al-Ṭabarī reads nazʿ as God's total, irresistible removal of dominion, set against His giving (tuʾtī) it; al-Zamakhsharī develops the implicit image of sovereignty as something firmly seated that God then plucks out; al-Rāzī treats the verse as a proof-text for divine omnipotence over all worldly rank. On 7:43 and 79:1, al-Rāghib reads nazʿ psychologically and eschatologically: God 'removes' rancor from believers' hearts in the afterlife, while al-nāziʿāt are the angels who draw souls from bodies—both keeping the sense of forcible extraction from a fixed seat. 7:27, where Satan 'strips off' the garments of Adam and Eve, is read as the archetypal exposure that follows the loss of a covering, tying nazʿ to the fall narrative central to Faṣṣ Ādam. The tanāzaʿa/yunāziʿu forms (3:152, 4:59, 22:67) shift the root into a social register of mutual pulling—dispute, contention—each party trying to wrench the matter toward himself.
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī reads the angels' objection to Adam's creation—'Wilt Thou place therein one who will work corruption?'—as itself a nizāʿ, and states that this niẓāʿ 'is the very reality (ʿayn) of what occurred from them,' i.e.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī reads the angels' objection to Adam's creation—'Wilt Thou place therein one who will work corruption?'—as itself a nizāʿ, and states that this niẓāʿ 'is the very reality (ʿayn) of what occurred from them,' i.e. from Adam's progeny. The move is characteristically Akbarian: the angels' verbal contestation is not a prediction later fulfilled in history but is ontologically identical with the corruption and strife it names—speech and event coincide in the same ʿayn. No formal Iṣṭilāḥ entry for نزع is preserved in the supplied materials, so this reading rests on the Faṣṣ Ādam passage alone.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference