Root · 1 in the Quran · 154 in 16 texts of the library
وجبa single root denoting the falling of a thing and its landing, from which other senses … (root wjb)
الواو والجيم والباء : أصل واحد يدل على سقوط الشيء ووقوعه ثم يتفرع ووجب البيع وجوبا : حتى وقع ووجب الميت : سقط والقتيل …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of و ج ب that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
30 words6 verbs10 verbal nouns5 participles1 place or instrument1 intensive or elative2 other nouns4 plurals1 relative or abstract
- وَجَبَتَit (a wall, or the like, Msb, or a house, or anything, Lh,) fell down
- أَوْجَبَmake necessary; obligate
- وَاجِبslain
- وُجُوبduty; necessity
- مُوجِبrequiring
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs6وَجَبَتَ · أَوْجَبَ · وَجَّبَ
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 Lane's “aor.”)
- وَجَبَتَit (a wall, or the like, Msb, or a house, or anything, Lh,) fell downLaneForm IQurʾān ×1library ×24LaneIbn Fāris
- أَوْجَبَmake necessary; obligateautoForm IVlibrary ×23Lane
- وَجَّبَhe threw him down upon the groundLaneForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- وَاجَبَLane: see Form IVForm IIILaneIbn Fāris
Verbal nouns10وُجُوب · مَوْجِب · وَجِيب
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
Participles5وَاجِب · مُوجِب · مُوجَب
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- وَاجِبslainLaneactive, Form Ilibrary ×21LaneIbn Fāris
- مُوجِبrequiringautoactive, Form IVlibrary ×9Ibn Fāris
- مُوجَبeffectLanepassive, Form IVlibrary ×4LaneIbn Fāris
- مُسْتَوْجِبdeserving; worthyautoactive, Form Xlibrary ×1Lane
- مُوَجِّبone who eats but once in the course of a day and a nightLaneactive, Form IILaneIbn Fāris
Place, time and instrument1مَوْجِب
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
Intensives, qualities and the elative1وَجَّاب
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- وَجَّابintensive (faʿʿāl)Lane
Other nouns2وَجِيبَة · وُجَاب
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Plurals4مُسْتَوْجِبِين · مُوجِبات · واجِبات
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- مُسْتَوْجِبِينsound plural of مُسْتَوْجِبlibrary ×1
- مُوجِباتplural of requiringfrom the singularsound plural of مُوجِبlibrary ×1
- واجِباتplural of slainfrom the singularsound plural of واجِبlibrary ×1
- وِجَابbroken plural of وَجْبLane
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 17 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 · 170Wajaba (وجب) the thing, wujūban (وجوبا).
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 · 393Wajaba (وجب) the thing, i.e., it became necessary/binding (lazima), yajibu wujūban (يجب وجوبا).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Wāw, jīm, and bā': a single root indicating the falling and dropping of a thing, from which branches develop.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-wujūb (الوجوب): fixed existence/necessity (al-thubūt).
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 · 711Wajaba (وجب) the thing, yajibu wujūban (يجب وجوبا), i.e., it became necessary/binding (lazima).
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.
و ج ب
الواو والجيم والباء : أصل واحد يدل على سقوط الشيء ووقوعه ثم يتفرع ووجب البيع وجوبا : حتى وقع ووجب الميت : سقط والقتيل واجب وفي الحديث : فإذا وجب فلا تبكين باكية أي إذا مات وقال الله في النسائك : ﴿ فإذا وجبت جنوبها ﴾
w-j-b is one root indicating the falling of a thing and its occurring, then it branches out; wajaba al-bay' wujūban means it took effect until it occurred; wajaba al-mayyit means he fell; and al-qatīl wājib; and in the Hadith: 'fa-idhā wajaba fa-lā tabkiyanna bākiya,' meaning when he has died; and Allah said regarding the sacrificial animals: 'fa-idhā wajabat junūbuhā.' 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
- وwāwbetween the lips · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- جjīmmiddle of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- بbāʾbetween the lips · 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
و
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 ↗
ج
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 ↗
ب
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 ↗
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
و
Level of existence: تعيين الرتب والمقامات والمنازل · the determination of ranks, stations and waystations
Divine Name: رفيع الدرجات · Rafīʿ al-Darajāt, Exalted in Degrees
Lunar mansion: الرشا · al-Rashāʾ
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62121Spheres 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 2582ج
Level of existence: الفلك الأطلس فلك البروج · the Atlas (starless) sphere, the sphere of the zodiacal signs
Divine Name: الغني · al-Ghanī, the Independent
Lunar mansion: الطرف · al-Ṭarf
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62085Spheres 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 2582ب
Level of existence: الجن · the jinn
Divine Name: اللطيف · al-Laṭīf, the Subtle
Lunar mansion: الفرع المقدم · al-Farʿ al-Muqaddam
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62118Spheres 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
و
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة في الإنسان مثل العروق والأصابع وما أشبه ذلك.
It is the intertwined things in the human being, such as veins, fingers and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الأشياء المباينة لبني آدم مثل الأفلاك والجبال وما أشبه ذلك
It is things distinct from the children of Adam, such as the celestial spheres, mountains and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الأشياء المشتبكة المستقذرة أو المبغوضة كالأمعاء ونحوها.
It is intertwined things that are filthy or detested, such as the intestines and the like.
ج
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي نبوة أو ولاية إذا كان قبلها أو بعدها ما يدل على ذلك، وإلا فهي للخير الذي لا يزول أبدا.
It is prophethood or sainthood (walāya) if something before or after it indicates that. Otherwise it is for the good that never ceases.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الخير الذي يؤكل أو ينتفع الناس منه.
It is the good that is eaten, or from which people derive benefit.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الخير القليل الذي في الذات من نور الإيمان.
It is the small good within the self from the light of faith.
ب
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي هو في غاية العز أو في غاية الذل.
It is an indication of the thing that is at the utmost of might or at the utmost of abasement.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة معها قبض.
It is an indication accompanied by contraction (qabḍ).
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما دخل أو هو داخل على الذات.
It is an indication of what has entered, or is entering, upon the self.
Two-letter nucleus12 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterو ج
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 33934 ↗
- وجحالواو والجيم والحاء كلمة تدل على ستر شيء لشيء وكل ما استترت به وجاح ووجاح ويقال الوجاح : الشخص لأن كل شخص يستر ما وراءه ومنه : حفرت حتى أوجحت أي بلغت L33936
- وجدالواو والجيم والدال : يدل على أصل واحد وهو الشيء يلفيه ووجدت الضالة وجدانا وحكي بعضهم : وجدت في الغضب وجدانا وأنشد : — كلانا رد صاحبه بيأس … على حنق وQ 107 · L33940
- وجذالواو والجيم والذال كلمة صحيحة هي الوجذ نقرة في الصخرة والجمع وجاذ وبلغنا أنهL33945
- وجرالواو والجيم والراء كلمة تدل على جنس من السقي ووجرت الصبي الدواء وأوجرته ويستعيرونه فيقولون أوجرته الرمح إذا طعنته في صدره والوجار سرب الضبع لأنها تغيL33948
- وجزالواو والجيم والزاء كلمة واحدةL33952
- وجسالواو والجيم والسين : كلمة تدل على إحساس بشيء وتسمع له توجس الشيء : أحس به فتسمع لهQ 3 · L33955
- وجعالواو والجيم والعين : كلمة واحدة هي الوجع : اسم يجمع المرض كله وهو ييجع وياجع وأنت تيجع من كذا وقال رائد من الرواد : رأيت كلأ تيجع له كبد المصرم وهو وL33962
- وجمالواو والجيم والميم : يدل على سكوت في اهتمام ووجم من الأمر يكرهه : أسكت له وفي الحديث : ما لي أراك واجما ويقولون : يوم وجيم : شديد الحر وفيه نظر ومصدرL33967
- وجنالواو والجيم والنون يدل على صلابة في الشيء ومنه الوجين : العارض من الأرض ينقاد وهو صلب وبه سميت الناقة وجناء وقياس وجنة الإنسان منه لأن فيها صلابة وشدL33971
- وجهالواو والجيم والهاء : أصل واحد يدل على مقابلة لشيء والوجه مستقبل لكل شيءQ 78 · L33976
- وجىالواو والجيم والحرف المعتل : يقولون : تركته وما في قلبي منه أوجى أي يئست منه ويقولون : سألته فأوجى علي اي بخل علي .L33987
- وجبالواو والجيم والباء : أصل واحد يدل على سقوط الشيء ووقوعه ثم يتفرع ووجب البيع وجوبا : حتى وقع ووجب الميت : سقط والقتيل واجب وفي الحديث : فإذا وجب فلا تQ 1 · L33990
In the sister scriptsHebrew ו ג בSyriac ܘ ܓ ܒ
| Arabic | و ج ب |
| Hebrew | ו ג ב |
| Syriac | ܘ ܓ ܒ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩥 𐩴 𐩨 |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 𐤂 𐤁 |
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 has both strands side by side: wajaba al-shayʾ as becoming due, and wajabat al-shams for the sun's setting, with wajba as the thud of something striking the ground;well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already has both strands side by side: wajaba al-shayʾ as becoming due, and wajabat al-shams for the sun's setting, with wajba as the thud of something striking the ground; he gives two readings of Q 22:36 (the souls left the camels, or they fell on their sides), mūjibāt as the grave sins by which God makes the Fire due, and wajjaba for a camel kneeling down. Al-Jawharī leads with lazima 'became binding', adds istawjaba 'to deserve', the binding sale and the wajība (a sale fixed and then taken in instalments), wajīb al-qalb as the heart's throbbing, and wajb 'coward'. Ibn Fāris reduces all of this to falling and landing: the sale 'falls' when concluded, the dead man and the slain are wājib, a wall wajaba when it collapsed, and the coward is 'like one fallen'; his excerpt turns to wajīb al-qalb separately with wa-ammā and then breaks off. Al-Rāghib glosses wujūb as thubūt 'being fixed', distinguishes the logically necessary (opposed to the possible, e.g. one given two) from the obligatory whose omission merits blame, divided into rational and legal, and reads the sun and the camels' sides as 'falling'. Ibn Manẓūr records the jurists' debate this sense produced (al-Khaṭṭābī reading 'ghusl on Friday is wājib' as strong recommendation; al-Shāfiʿī equating wājib and farḍ, Abū Ḥanīfa ranking farḍ above wājib), and Lane opens the entry with 'it fell down', wajbat al-shams, and Kur. xxii.
Draws on: Kitāb al-ʿAyn · Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Mufradāt · Lisān · Lane
- Wiktionary, Arabic root و ج ب ↗
- Q 22:36 ↗
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. وجب
Letters & soundNo entries from Ibn ʿArabī's letter doctrine are supplied for wāw, jīm or bāʾ here.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
No entries from Ibn ʿArabī's letter doctrine are supplied for wāw, jīm or bāʾ here. Al-Dabbāgh gives wāw as intertwined things in the human being (veins, fingers), jīm as prophethood or sainthood when context signals it and otherwise unceasing good, and bāʾ as the utmost of might or the utmost of abasement. A reader could set bāʾ's double pole beside the root's two poles, the binding (necessity) and the fallen (the slain, the collapsed wall), though al-Dabbāgh does not make this link. Mainstream linguistics treats such sound-meaning correspondences as suggestive at most.
Draws on: al-Dabbāgh (al-Ibrīz) · no Akbarian letter data supplied
Root structureIbn Fāris's w-j chapter places w-j-b beside w-j-ḥ (screening), w-j-d (finding), w-j-dh (a hollow in rock), w-j-r (pouring medicine into the mouth), w-j-z, w-j-s (sensing and listening), w-j-ʿ (pain), w-j-m (silent distress), w-j-n (hardness) and w-j-h (facing);uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's w-j chapter places w-j-b beside w-j-ḥ (screening), w-j-d (finding), w-j-dh (a hollow in rock), w-j-r (pouring medicine into the mouth), w-j-z, w-j-s (sensing and listening), w-j-ʿ (pain), w-j-m (silent distress), w-j-n (hardness) and w-j-h (facing); no shared meaning across them is evident. Of the permutations, j-w-b is well attested (Ibn Fāris: piercing, khurq), b-w-j is glossed as the flashing of lightning, and j-b-w/j-b-y is given as gathering; w-b-j and b-j-w are not attested. One may set the sudden 'fall' of w-j-b beside the sudden flash of b-w-j, but this is juxtaposition only, and Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation does not yield a convincing common sense for this set.
Draws on: Maqāyīs chapter siblings · permutations
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident cognate in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian is established for this root in the sense 'fall' or 'be binding'.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident cognate in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Geʿez or South Arabian is established for this root in the sense 'fall' or 'be binding'. The legal and philosophical senses develop within Arabic itself from the image of a thing that has landed and stays put. There is no reason to treat the word as a loan.
Draws on: absence of secure cognate
Quranic exegesisThe single Quranic occurrence concerns the sacrificial camels slaughtered standing in rows (ṣawāff): 'when their sides fall (wajabat junūbuhā), eat of them.' The exegetes read wajabat as falling to the ground, understood as the animal's death after slaughter, which sets the point after which the meat may be eaten;plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
The single Quranic occurrence concerns the sacrificial camels slaughtered standing in rows (ṣawāff): 'when their sides fall (wajabat junūbuhā), eat of them.' The exegetes read wajabat as falling to the ground, understood as the animal's death after slaughter, which sets the point after which the meat may be eaten; al-Khalīl's alternative gloss, 'their souls have gone out', reaches the same result. Al-Rāghib cites the verse together with the setting sun and the throbbing heart as uses of 'falling'. The Quran does not use the root in the sense of obligation, which is later and juristic.
Draws on: Q 22:36 · al-Ṭabarī · al-Zamakhsharī · al-Rāghib
Philosophy & kalāmIn falsafa wājib is the necessary in the modal triad necessary, possible, impossible.well attested
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In falsafa wājib is the necessary in the modal triad necessary, possible, impossible. Avicenna distinguishes the necessary of existence in itself (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi), which is God, from what is possible in itself and necessary through another (wājib bi-ghayrihi), which is every caused being; this distinction is central to his proof of God. The mutakallimūn use the same triad (wājib, jāʾiz, mustaḥīl) for rational judgments and, in law and ethics, wājib for what is obligatory. Al-Ghazālī adopts the terminology in his own works while contesting in the Tahāfut what the philosophers deduce from it.
Draws on: Avicenna · kalām modal triad · al-Ghazālī
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam the root appears only in the philosophical sense.well attested
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam the root appears only in the philosophical sense. The originated thing is bound to its support by need (iftiqār), and that support must be necessary of existence by its essence, self-sufficient, and the giver of existence to the originated; the originated is then necessary through it (wājiban bihi). The created being is therefore in the form of its source in every name and attribute except essential necessity (al-wujūb al-dhātī): it may be called necessary of existence, but its necessity is through another and not from itself. Ibn ʿArabī thus takes over Avicenna's distinction and makes it the single attribute that separates the Real from the form in which the human being is made. No Iṣṭilāḥ definition for this root is supplied.
Draws on: Faṣṣ Ādam contexts · Avicennian vocabulary
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference