Root · 78 in the Quran · 10 in 8 texts of the library
وحيto cast/convey knowledge to another swiftly and in a concealed manner, however that … (root why)
الواو والحاء والحرف المعتل : أصل يدل على إلقاء علم في إخفاء أو غيره إلى غيرك فالوحي : الإشارة والوحي : الكتاب والرسالة …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of و ح ي that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
2 words1 verb1 other noun
- أَوْحَىinspire; suggest
- وَحْيinspiration
The whole family2 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs1أَوْحَى
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- أَوْحَىinspire; suggestautoForm IVQurʾān ×72library ×5Ibn Fāris
Other nouns1وَحْي
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- وَحْيinspirationautonounQurʾān ×6library ×4Ibn Fāris
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 2 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 · 170It is said: waḥiya yaḥī waḥyan (وحي يحي وحيا), meaning 'he wrote, he writes, writing' (kataba yaktubu kitāban).
al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn. The first Arabic dictionary, arranged by permutations of the root letters.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Jawharī · 393Al-waḥy (الوحي): 'writing, book' (al-kitāb), and its plural is wiḥiyy (وحي), like ḥalyun/ḥuliyy.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Wāw, ḥāʾ, and the weak letter (yāʾ): a root indicating the conveying of knowledge to another, whether in concealment or otherwise.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502The basic meaning of waḥy (الوحي) is 'swift signaling' (al-ishāra al-sarīʿa);
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-waḥy (الوحي): signal (al-ishāra), writing (al-kitāba), message (al-risāla), inspiration (al-ilhām), secret speech (al-kalām al-khafiyy), and everything you convey to another.
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.
و ح ي
الواو والحاء والحرف المعتل : أصل يدل على إلقاء علم في إخفاء أو غيره إلى غيرك فالوحي : الإشارة والوحي : الكتاب والرسالة وكل ما ألقيته إلى غيرك حتى علمه فهو وحي كيف كان وأوحى الله تعالى ووحى
w-ḥ and the weak letter following it is a root indicating the conveying of knowledge, whether in concealment or otherwise, to another; al-waḥy is a signal; and al-waḥy is a written message and a dispatch; and anything you convey to another so that he comes to know it is waḥy, in whatever form; and awḥā Allāh ta'ālā, and waḥā… AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Quran ×78
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
- حḥāʾmiddle of the throat · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- يyāʾmiddle of the tongue · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
How each letter is made, in brief, from Sībawayh's and Ibn Jinnī's own sentences (linked); their words are under Reference.
Sharing two of its three letters (computed; kinship of form, not of meaning)
Reference
How it is madeSībawayh and Ibn Jinnī · phonetics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
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 ↗
ح
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 ↗
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 ↗
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 2582ح
Level of existence: الجوهر الهبابي · the dust-like substance (spelled الهبابي in the text)
Divine Name: الآخر · al-Ākhir, the Last
Lunar mansion: الدبران · al-Dabarān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62076Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
ي
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 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.
ح
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي تدل على الإحاطة والشمول للجميع.
It denotes encompassing and inclusion of everything.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العدد الكثير الخارج عن بني آدم كالنجوم.
It is a great number external to the children of Adam, such as the stars.
With kasra ـِ
فهي العدد الداخل في الذات أو للذات عليه ولاية كملكية العبيد والدنانير والدراهم وغير ذلك.
It is a number contained within the self, or over which the self has authority, such as ownership of slaves, dinars, dirhams and the like.
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.
Two-letter nucleus7 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterو ح
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 34003 ↗
- وحدالواو والحاء والدال : أصل واحد يدل على الانفرادQ 68 · L34005
- وحرالواو والحاء والراء : كلمة واحدة هي الوحرة : دويبة شبه العظاية إذا دبت على اللحم وحر ثم شبه الغل في الصدر بها فيقال وحر صدره وفي الحديث : يذهب وحر صدرL34014
- وحشالواو والحاء والشين : كلمة تدل على خلاف الإنس توحش : فارق الإنيس والوحش : خلاف الإنس وأرض موحشة من الوحش ووحشي القوس : ظهرها ؛ وإنسيها : ما أقبل عليك Q 1 · L34018
- وحفالواو والحاء والفاء : كلمة تدل على سواد في شيء وشعر وحف : أسود لين والوحفاء : أرض فيها حجارة سود وعشب وحف : كثير وإذا كثر تبين أسود . ومما شذ عنه كلمتL34028
- وحلالواو والحاء واللام : كلمة واحدة هي الوحل واستوحل المكان : صار فيه الوحل والموحل : موضع الوحل ووحلت الدواب توحل : وقعت في الوحل .L34034
- وحمالواو والحاء والميم : كلمتان الوحم والوحام والوحم : شهوة المرأة للشيء على الحبل وامرأة وحمى وقد وحمناهاL34038
- وحىالواو والحاء والحرف المعتل : أصل يدل على إلقاء علم في إخفاء أو غيره إلى غيرك فالوحي : الإشارة والوحي : الكتاب والرسالة وكل ما ألقيته إلى غيرك حتى علمهQ 78 · L34044
In the sister scriptsHebrew ו ח יSyriac ܘ ܚ ܝ
| Arabic | و ح ي |
| Hebrew | ו ח י |
| Syriac | ܘ ܚ ܝ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩥 𐩢 𐩺 |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 𐤇 𐤉 |
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 glosses waḥā/yaḥī as 'to write,' citing al-ʿAjjāj's line on a fate that 'the writer wrote' (waḥāhu l-wāḥī).well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already glosses waḥā/yaḥī as 'to write,' citing al-ʿAjjāj's line on a fate that 'the writer wrote' (waḥāhu l-wāḥī). Al-Jawharī broadens this to a cluster: waḥy as 'the book,' as 'signal,' as 'writing,' as 'message,' as 'inspiration,' and as 'concealed speech'—anything cast to another so that only he grasps it; he notes the plural waḥy on the pattern ḥulan/ḥulī. Ibn Fāris crystallizes the common thread as 'casting knowledge to another, concealed or otherwise, so that he comes to know it'—a genus covering gesture, script, sound alone, bodily signal, and writing. Al-Rāghib specifies that the root's core is 'rapid signaling' (al-ishāra al-sarīʿa), and that speed is why a swift command is called amr waḥī; he reads Zakariyyā's silent gesture to his people (Q19:11) as exemplifying this range of possible modes—rumz, ishāra, or kitāba. Ibn Manẓūr's entry mainly consolidates al-Jawharī and al-Rāghib, adding a ḥadīth in which waḥy is distinguished from mere recitation as something 'more exacting.'
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan
- al-Khalīl, al-ʿAyn, root و-ح-ي
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root و-ح-ي
- Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root و-ح-ي
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, root و-ح-ي
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root و-ح-ي
Letters & soundIn Ibn ʿArabī's schema of the letters as stations of the Breath, wāw marks 'the determination of ranks, stations, and waystations,' ḥāʾ marks 'the dust-like substance' (al-jawhar al-habāʾī, the primordial receptive stuff), and yāʾ marks 'the First Heaven.' Read symbolically, a word built from these three could be seen to move from an ordering principle (wāw), through the subtle receptive substrate (ḥāʾ), toward the first heavenly plane (yāʾ)—apt imagery for waḥy as something that descends and is impressed upon a receptive locus.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In Ibn ʿArabī's schema of the letters as stations of the Breath, wāw marks 'the determination of ranks, stations, and waystations,' ḥāʾ marks 'the dust-like substance' (al-jawhar al-habāʾī, the primordial receptive stuff), and yāʾ marks 'the First Heaven.' Read symbolically, a word built from these three could be seen to move from an ordering principle (wāw), through the subtle receptive substrate (ḥāʾ), toward the first heavenly plane (yāʾ)—apt imagery for waḥy as something that descends and is impressed upon a receptive locus. Al-Dabbāgh's fatḥa-values reinforce this: wāw as 'the intertwined things in the human being (veins, fingers, and the like),' ḥāʾ as 'encompassing and inclusion of everything,' and yāʾ as 'the vocative, or emphasis'—together suggestive of an inward, encompassing address. This kind of letter-symbolism is explicitly a speculative, mystical reading; mainstream historical linguistics treats sound-symbolism claims of this sort as unverifiable and does not accord them explanatory status for the root's actual semantic development.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh_fatha
- Ibn ʿArabī, letters of the Breath (akbari198 table)
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings (fatḥa readings)
Root structureIbn Fāris groups و-ح-ي among the و-ح- chapter alongside waḥd (isolation, aloneness), waḥr (a hidden rancor lodged in the breast), waḥsh (the uninhabited, the opposite of intimate company), waḥf (blackness), waḥl (mud), and waḥm (a craving seizing a pregnant woman)—each treated by him as its own discrete aṣl, with no explicit claim of a shared two-letter nucleus meaning.plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris groups و-ح-ي among the و-ح- chapter alongside waḥd (isolation, aloneness), waḥr (a hidden rancor lodged in the breast), waḥsh (the uninhabited, the opposite of intimate company), waḥf (blackness), waḥl (mud), and waḥm (a craving seizing a pregnant woman)—each treated by him as its own discrete aṣl, with no explicit claim of a shared two-letter nucleus meaning. A reader inclined toward Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation might notice that several of these (waḥr's hidden grudge, waḥy's hidden casting of knowledge) share an interior, concealed quality, but Ibn Fāris himself makes no such claim and this remains an inference, not his stated position. Among the permutations of the three root letters, waḥy (و-ح-ي, 78 Qurʾanic occurrences) stands as the one Ibn Fāris affirms as a genuine aṣl; wayḥ (و-ي-ح) is an interjection of pity, not a verbal root; ḥawā (ح-و-ي) denotes gathering; ḥayiya/ḥayawān (ح-ي-و) concerns life against death, unrelated in sense; and yūḥ (ي-و-ح) is cited only as a rare name for the sun. Any semantic kinship between waḥy and yūḥ (concealed illumination, sun) via Ibn Jinnī's method would be a speculative juxtaposition of unattested forms, not an established derivation.
Draws on: maqayis nucleus siblings · maqayis permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, root و-ح-د, و-ح-ر, و-ح-ش, و-ح-ي (chapter entries)
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for و-ح-ي in the sense 'to convey/reveal' is attested in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Gəʿəz, or the Old South Arabian corpus;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for و-ح-ي in the sense 'to convey/reveal' is attested in Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Akkadian, Gəʿəz, or the Old South Arabian corpus; the Hebrew vocabulary of prophetic revelation instead uses distinct roots (n-b-ʾ 'to prophesy,' d-b-r 'to speak'), and Syriac likewise draws on other roots for revelation (e.g. gly 'to uncover'). There is no basis here for treating waḥy as a loanword; it appears to be an inner-Arabic development, and the root is attested across the classical Arabic lexicographic tradition with no marker (such as an unusual phonological shape) that would suggest foreign origin.
Draws on: comparative Semitic lexicography
Quranic exegesisThe exegetes read waḥy across a deliberately wide semantic range that mirrors the lexicographers' own breadth.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
The exegetes read waḥy across a deliberately wide semantic range that mirrors the lexicographers' own breadth. In Q4:163 ('We revealed to Nūḥ and the prophets after him'), al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī take awḥaynā as full prophetic revelation, transmitted variously by angel, direct address, or true dream. In Q3:44 and the parallel at Q19:11, where Zakariyyā 'signals' (fa-awḥā) to his people to glorify God, the same commentators and al-Rāghib read the verb as a silent gesture, not verbal revelation—illustrating the root's 'rapid, concealed communication' sense outside any prophetic-revelation context. Elsewhere (Q6:121, on Satan 'inspiring' his allies, and Q16:68, on God 'inspiring' the bee) exegetes extend waḥy to demonic suggestion and instinctual impulse respectively, with al-Rāzī addressing why the same term covers such disparate agents and recipients; the consensus explanation, following al-Rāghib, is that the root names the mode (swift, hidden casting of content) rather than any single content or source.
Philosophy & kalāmIn falsafa, waḥy becomes a technical term for the mode by which the prophetic soul receives knowledge from the Active Intellect.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
In falsafa, waḥy becomes a technical term for the mode by which the prophetic soul receives knowledge from the Active Intellect. Avicenna (in al-Shifāʾ and al-Najāt) explains prophetic waḥy as an overflow (fayḍ) onto a soul endowed with an exceptionally strong 'holy faculty' (al-quwwa al-qudsiyya), which grasps intelligibles by intuition (ḥads) without the mediation of a teacher, and which may also represent these intelligibles imaginatively so they can be communicated in the sensible form of scripture. Al-Ghazālī, more cautious, accepts prophetic waḥy as a genuine mode of knowledge exceeding ordinary reason but resists reducing it entirely to Avicenna's emanationist psychology. Later mutakallimūn largely retain waḥy as sui generis divine address, resisting its naturalization into philosophical prophetology.
Draws on: Avicennan prophetology
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