Root · 23 in the Quran · 14 in 6 texts of the library
وزنadjustment and uprightness. (root wzn)
الواو والزاء والنون : بناء يدل على تعديل واستقامة : ووزنت الشيء وزنا والزنة قدر وزن الشيء ؛ والأصل وزنة ويقال : قام …
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of و ز ن that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
7 words1 verb1 participle1 place or instrument2 other nouns2 plurals
- مِيزَان—
- مَوَازِين—
- وَزَنُweight; equilibrate
- وَزْن—
- مُوازَنَةbudget
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs1وَزَنُ
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 (a; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- وَزَنُweight; equilibrateautoForm IQurʾān ×3library ×1Ibn Fāris
Participles1مَوْزُون
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مَوْزُونweighed; balancedautopassive, Form Ilibrary ×2
Place, time and instrument1مِيزَان
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مِيزَانnoun of instrumentQurʾān ×16Ibn Fāris
Other nouns2وَزْن · مُوازَنَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- وَزْنnounQurʾān ×3Ibn Fāris
- مُوازَنَةbudgetautonounlibrary ×4
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 6 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 · 170Al-wazn (الوزن): well-known.
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-mīzān (الميزان) is well-known;
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Wāw, zāy, and nūn: a root that indicates evenness/balance and straightness/correctness.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-wazn (الوزن) is the knowledge of the measure of a thing.
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-wazn (الوزن): the gauging of heaviness and lightness.
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 ز ن
الواو والزاء والنون : بناء يدل على تعديل واستقامة : ووزنت الشيء وزنا والزنة قدر وزن الشيء ؛ والأصل وزنة ويقال : قام ميزان النهار إذا انتصف النهار وهذا يوازن ذلك أي هو محاذيه ووزين الرأى : معتدله وهو راجح الوزن إذا نسبوه …
w-z-n: a construction that denotes adjustment and uprightness; wazantu l-shayʾ waznan; and al-zina: the measure of the weight of a thing, and its origin is wazna; and it is said: qāma mīzān al-nahār when the day reached its midpoint; and hādhā yuwāzinu dhālika, i.e., it corresponds to it; and al-raʾy al-wazīn: the balanced opinion; and he is rājiḥ al-wazn when they attribute to him… AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗al-Khalīl: used ↗Quran ×23
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
- زzāytongue-tip, by the front teeth · voiced, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- نnūntip 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 ↗
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 ↗
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 ↗
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 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 2577ن
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 2580Meaning 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.
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.
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.
Two-letter nucleus7 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterو 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 34252 ↗
- وزعالواو والزاء والعين : بناء موضوع على غير قياس ووزعته عن الأمر : كففتهQ 5 · L34254
- وزغالواو والزاء والغين ليس فيه إلا الوزغة : العظاية ويقال للرجال الضعاف أوزاغ .L34261
- وزفالواو والزاء والفاءL34264
- وزمالواو والزاء والميم : بناء أيضا على غير قياس وفيه كلمات منفردة فالوزمة أن يأكل الرجل مرة واحدة كالوجبةL34267
- وزنالواو والزاء والنون : بناء يدل على تعديل واستقامة : ووزنت الشيء وزنا والزنة قدر وزن الشيء ؛ والأصل وزنة ويقال : قام ميزان النهار إذا انتصف النهار وهذاQ 23 · L34273
- وزاالواو والزاء والحرف المعتل أو المهموز : أصيل يدل على تجمع في شيء واكتنازL34280
- وزرالواو والزاء والراء أصلان صحيحان : أحدهما الملجأ والآخر الثقل في الشيء . الأول الوزر : الملجأQ 27 · L34285
In the sister scriptsHebrew ו ז נSyriac ܘ ܙ ܢ
| Arabic | و ز ن |
| Hebrew | ו ז נ |
| Syriac | ܘ ܙ ܢ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩥 𐩸 𐩬 |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 𐤆 𐤍 |
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 weighing one thing against an equal weight — wazantu al-shayʾ fa-ittazan — and already extends this to estimating a date-palm's yield by reckoning (kharaṣa), and to a man wazīn al-raʾy, of settled, weighty judgment;well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives the base sense as weighing one thing against an equal weight — wazantu al-shayʾ fa-ittazan — and already extends this to estimating a date-palm's yield by reckoning (kharaṣa), and to a man wazīn al-raʾy, of settled, weighty judgment; he also records the anomalous al-wazīn, ground colocynth eaten with milk. Al-Jawharī keeps the concrete sense (dirham wāzin, a full-weight dirham) but foregrounds its extension to worth and intellect, quoting a verse in which men light as sparrows in judgment 'would not weigh anything even against down feathers,' and gives the paired verbs wazana (the giver weighs out) / ittazana (the receiver takes by weight), on the model of naqada/intaqada. Ibn Fāris (Maqāyīs) generalizes the whole family under taʿdīl wa-istiqāmah — adjustment and uprightness — covering the noon-balance of the day (qāma mīzān al-nahār), correspondence between two things (yuwāzin), and soundness of judgment (wazīn al-raʾy, rājiḥ al-wazn), while flagging al-Khalīl's colocynth-sense as anomalous to the pattern. Al-Rāghib narrows straight to the Qurʾānic register, reading wazn's literal scale-sense (qisṭās, qabbān) as figure for mu'ādalah, the maintenance of justice and equity in all of a person's deeds and words — a moral extension he grounds directly in Q26:182 and Q55:9. Ibn Manẓūr's Lisān returns to instrumentation, describing the standardized stone or iron weight-sets (mawāzīn, sing. mīzān) used for measuring dates and goods, equated with mathāqīl.
Draws on: al-ʿAyn · al-Ṣiḥāḥ · Maqāyīs · Mufradāt · Lisān al-ʿArab
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, s.v. w-z-n
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v. w-z-n
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, s.v. w-z-n
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt, s.v. w-z-n
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. w-z-n
Letters & soundThe supplied tables gloss wāw as 'the determination of ranks, stations and waystations' (in fatḥah: the intertwined things within the human being, veins, fingers), zāy again as 'what appears in the pillar of air' (in fatḥah: what harms, and what one guards against), and nūn as 'the fourth heaven' (in fatḥah: the good that dwells and kindles within the self).speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
The supplied tables gloss wāw as 'the determination of ranks, stations and waystations' (in fatḥah: the intertwined things within the human being, veins, fingers), zāy again as 'what appears in the pillar of air' (in fatḥah: what harms, and what one guards against), and nūn as 'the fourth heaven' (in fatḥah: the good that dwells and kindles within the self). A speculative composite reading would make mīzān the instrument that determines rank/station (wāw) by discerning and guarding against what harms (zāy) so as to expose the good kindling within the self (nūn) — an image not implausible next to the Qurʾānic Balance that sorts deeds. This remains squarely in the register of Akbarian/Dabbāghian letter-symbolism; mainstream historical linguistics offers no support for reading semantic content off individual radicals this way, and the correspondence should be taken as evocative only.
Draws on: Akbarian letter-table (akbari198) · al-Dabbāgh letter meanings
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meaning tables (fatḥah series), as transmitted
Root structureAmong Ibn Fāris's wāw-zāʾ roots, wazn's sense of adjustment/uprightness stands out as the only one he calls a genuine, regular bāb;plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Among Ibn Fāris's wāw-zāʾ roots, wazn's sense of adjustment/uprightness stands out as the only one he calls a genuine, regular bāb; wazaʿ (restraining), wazagh (only the lizard-word), and wazm (eating a single meal) are each marked as irregular formations, and wazā (compact gathering) and wazr (refuge / burden) form two unrelated sound roots of their own. Among the permutations, one attested reversal is nazw (n-z-w), which Ibn Fāris glosses as leaping and rising (wathbān wa-irtifāʿ wa-sumūw) — a juxtaposition worth noting only as juxtaposition: wazn (steadiness, level correspondence) and nazw (upward leap) share letters while pointing to opposite kinds of verticality, settledness against sudden ascent. Zawn (idol, or house of idols) is attested but Ibn Fāris himself denies it is a real root (laysa huwa ʿindī aṣlan), so no derivational claim should be built on it.
Draws on: Maqāyīs nucleus siblings · permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, bāb w-z
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsGeʿez ወዘነ (wazana), 'to weigh,' is a well-recognized cognate of Arabic wazana, both continuing a common Semitic verb for weighing.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Geʿez ወዘነ (wazana), 'to weigh,' is a well-recognized cognate of Arabic wazana, both continuing a common Semitic verb for weighing. Aramaic/Syriac moʾzānā, 'balance, scales,' and Hebrew mōznayim, 'scales,' are widely compared to Arabic mīzān, though the Hebrew form's synchronic association with ʾoznayim, 'ears' (by analogy of hanging scale-pans), makes its precise derivation from this root less than fully certain. Akkadian instead uses a different root, šaqālu, 'to weigh' (cognate rather with Arabic thaql, 'heaviness'), so no Akkadian cognate to w-z-n itself is confidently attested. There is no indication that Arabic wazn/mīzān is a loanword; it behaves as an inherited Semitic root.
Draws on: comparative Semitic lexicography
- Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez, s.v. wazana
Quranic exegesisAl-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī read the wazn of Q7:8–9 (al-waznu yawmaʾidhin al-ḥaqq) as referring to a real eschatological Balance on the Day of Judgment in which deeds are weighed, while discussing — without resolving away — the difficulty of how non-corporeal acts can be literally weighed;plausible
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī read the wazn of Q7:8–9 (al-waznu yawmaʾidhin al-ḥaqq) as referring to a real eschatological Balance on the Day of Judgment in which deeds are weighed, while discussing — without resolving away — the difficulty of how non-corporeal acts can be literally weighed; most affirm the mīzān's reality per hadith while treating the weighing itself as God's precise, just reckoning. Al-Rāghib generalizes from Q26:182 (wazinū bi-l-qisṭāsi al-mustaqīm) and Q55:9 (aqīmū al-wazna bi-l-qisṭ) to a broader ethical demand for equity (ʿadl) in every deed and word, not merely commercial honesty in trade. Q18:105 (falā nuqīmu lahum yawma al-qiyāmati waznan) is read by al-Ṭabarī and al-Zamakhsharī as meaning such people's deeds will carry no weight or standing at all before God, i.e., total nullification of worth rather than a light but present weight. On Q15:19 (wa-anbatnā fīhā min kulli shayʾin mawzūn), al-Rāghib notes two readings current among exegetes — that mawzūn refers specifically to minerals like gold and silver, or that it signals that everything God created is created in exact measure, tying it to Q54:49 (innā kulla shayʾin khalaqnāhu bi-qadar).
Philosophy & kalāmMīzān becomes a live philosophical metaphor in al-Ghazālī, who titles works al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm and Miʿyār/Mīzān al-ʿIlm, deliberately borrowing the Qurʾānic vocabulary of the just balance (Q17:35, Q26:182) to present Aristotelian syllogistic as a 'balance' that weighs true reasoning against false.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Mīzān becomes a live philosophical metaphor in al-Ghazālī, who titles works al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm and Miʿyār/Mīzān al-ʿIlm, deliberately borrowing the Qurʾānic vocabulary of the just balance (Q17:35, Q26:182) to present Aristotelian syllogistic as a 'balance' that weighs true reasoning against false. This is not a technical term of kalām proper in the way wujūd or ḥaqq are, but a self-conscious appropriation of the root's core sense — taʿdīl wa-istiqāmah — to legitimate logic within an Islamic epistemic idiom. The move trades on exactly the moral-epistemic extension al-Rāghib had already drawn from the Qurʾānic verses.
Draws on: al-Ghazālī
- al-Ghazālī, al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm
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