Root · 4 in the Quran · 67 in 17 texts of the library
وفقIbn Fāris's own maqāyīs entry for this exact root is not preserved in the sources at … (root wfq)
English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of و ف ق that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
11 words3 verbs3 verbal nouns3 participles1 intensive or elative1 other noun
- اِتَّفَقَagree
- تَوْفِيقsuccess; successful outcome
- وَفَّقَgrant success
- وَافَقَ—
- مُوافَقَةagreement
The whole family5 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs3اِتَّفَقَ · وَفَّقَ · وَافَقَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
- اِتَّفَقَagreeautoForm VIIIlibrary ×14
- وَفَّقَgrant successautoForm IIQurʾān ×1library ×5
- وَافَقَForm IIIlibrary ×4
Verbal nouns3تَوْفِيق · وِفَاق · تَوافُق
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَوْفِيقsuccess; successful outcomeautoForm IIQurʾān ×2library ×8
- وِفَاقForm IIIQurʾān ×1
- تَوافُقagreement; conformityautoForm VIlibrary ×1
Participles3مُوَفَّق · مُتَّفَق · مُوافِق
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- مُوَفَّقsuccessful; granted successautopassive, Form IVlibrary ×2
- مُتَّفَقagreedautopassive, Form VIIIlibrary ×1
- مُوافِقagreeing; consentingautoactive, Form IIIlibrary ×1
Intensives, qualities and the elative1أَوْفَق
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- أَوْفَقmore; most suitableautoelative or colour adjective (afʿal)library ×1
Other nouns1مُوافَقَة
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- مُوافَقَةagreementautonounlibrary ×3
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
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-wifq (الوفق): everything that is consistent and in agreement upon one accord (tīfāq) is called wifq (وفق).
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-wifāq (الوفاق) is al-muwāfaqah (الموافقة, 'agreement').
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-wifq (الوفق): correspondence between two things.
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Al-wifāq (الوفاق) is al-muwāfaqah (الموافقة, 'agreement').
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 ف ق
الواو والفاء والقاف : كلمة تدل على ملاءمة الشيئين منه الوفق : الموافقة واتفق الشيئان : تقاربا وتلأما ووافقت فلانا : صادقته كأنهما اجتمعا متوافقين
w-f-q: a word indicating the suitability of two things; from it al-wifq: agreement; and ittafaqa the two things: they drew close and suited each other; and wāfaqtu fulānan: I became friends with him, as if the two had come together in agreement. 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
- فfāʾlower lip and upper teeth · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
- قqāffar back of the tongue · 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 ↗
ف
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26562 ↗
ومن باطن الشفة السفلى وأطراف الثنايا العلى، مخرج الفاء
From the inside of the lower lip and the edges of the upper front teeth is the place of the fāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 985 ↗
ق
ومن أقصى اللسان وما فوقه من الحنك الأعلى مخرج القاف
From the furthest part of the tongue and the upper palate above it is the place of the qāf. Sībawayh, line 26550 ↗
ومما فوق ذلك من أقصى اللسان، مخرج القاف
From above that, at the furthest part of the tongue, is the place of the qāf. Ibn Jinnī, line 972 ↗
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 2582ف
Level of existence: الملائكة · the angels
Divine Name: القوى · the Strong (al-Qawī)
Lunar mansion: سعد الأخبية · Saʿd al-Akhbiya
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 65823Spheres 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 2582ق
Spheres 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.
ف
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي لنفي الخبث بعد ما كان جنسه معلوما بالخبث، فهي إشارة إلى أنه طاهر وجنسه خبيث، والخبث مثل المعاصي وما أشبهها.
It is for negating foulness in something whose genus is known for foulness. It thus indicates that the thing is pure while its genus is foul; foulness being like sins and the like.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي لتزويل الخبث.
It is for removing foulness.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذات وما احتوت عليه، وفي بعض الأحيان قد يكون معها التقليل.
It is an indication of the self and what it contains; at times it may carry a sense of diminution.
ق
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى حيازة الخيرات أو إلى جميع الأنوار.
It is an indication of the acquisition of goods, or of all lights.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى النشأة الأصلية أو العلم القديم وما أشبه ذلك.
It is an indication of the original creation, or eternal knowledge, and the like.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الذل.
It is an indication of abasement.
Two-letter nucleus4 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterو ف
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 34642 ↗
- وفرالواو والفاء والراء : كلمة تدل على كثرة وتمام وفر الشيء يفر وهو موفور ووفره الله ومنه وفرة الشعر : دون الجمة واشتقاق اسم المال الوفر منهQ 1 · L34662
- وفزالواو والفاء والزاء : كلمة تدل على عجلة وقلة استقرار وأنا على وفز وأوفاز أي عجلةL34668
- وفضالواو والفاء والضاد : ثلاث كلمات متباينة : الأولى أوفض إيفاضا : أسرع وجاء على وفض وأوفاض أي عجلة . والثانية الأوفاض : الفرق من الناس . والثالثة الوفضةQ 1 · L34672
- وفعالواو والفاء والعين يقولون : الوفعة : خرقة يقتبس فيها نار والوفيعة كالسلة تتخذ من العراجين ويقال الوفعة : صمام القارورة .L34676
In the sister scriptsHebrew ו פ קSyriac ܘ ܦ ܩ
| Arabic | و ف ق |
| Hebrew | ו פ ק |
| Syriac | ܘ ܦ ܩ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩥 𐩰 𐩤 |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 𐤐 𐤒 |
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 al-wafq as anything consistent upon 'one manner' (tīfāq), illustrated by a verse about birds settling in a matched row (wafqan).well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives al-wafq as anything consistent upon 'one manner' (tīfāq), illustrated by a verse about birds settling in a matched row (wafqan). Al-Jawharī develops this into wifāq = muwāfaqa (concord), tawfīq as what God grants, and a vivid pastoral idiom — a household's milk-yield that is 'wafq' its dependents, i.e. exactly sufficient, no surplus — showing wafq denotes precise fit rather than mere agreement. Al-Rāghib sharpens the semantic field: al-wafq is muṭābaqa bayna al-shayʾayn (exact correspondence between two things), citing Q78:26's jazāʾan wifāqan (a recompense that matches the deed exactly); he distinguishes ittifāq (a person's act coinciding with divine decree, used of good or ill) from tawfīq, which by convention is restricted to the good, citing Q11:88. Ibn Manẓūr (via Ibn Sīda) confirms wafaqa al-shayʾ as 'what suits/matches it' and lists wafq, wifāq, wafīq, fawq, siyy, ʿidl as near-synonyms for 'its exact match.'
Draws on: cayn · sihah · mufradat · lisan
- al-ʿAyn, s.v. w-f-q
- al-Ṣiḥāḥ, s.v. w-f-q
- al-Mufradāt, s.v. w-f-q
- Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. w-f-q
Letters & soundIn Ibn ʿArabī's letter-cosmology wāw marks the fixing of ranks and stations, while al-Dabbāgh reads it as the intertwined connective tissue of a body (veins, fingers) — apt figures for muwāfaqa as a binding-together of two things.speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In Ibn ʿArabī's letter-cosmology wāw marks the fixing of ranks and stations, while al-Dabbāgh reads it as the intertwined connective tissue of a body (veins, fingers) — apt figures for muwāfaqa as a binding-together of two things. Fāʾ is glossed by Ibn ʿArabī as 'the angels' and by al-Dabbāgh as the negation of a defect native to a thing's genus, i.e. purity singled out from a flawed kind — which would cast tawfīq as success rescued from the ordinary human liability to err. Qāf, left unglossed by Ibn ʿArabī here, is for al-Dabbāgh 'the acquisition of goods, or of all lights,' fitting tawfīq's sense of attainment. Mainstream historical linguistics treats none of this as evidence of real etymology; it is offered only as a symbolic resonance internal to the Akbarian and letter-science tradition.
Draws on: akbari198 · dabbagh
Root structureThe two-letter nucleus و-ف groups wafr (abundance, fullness), wafz (haste, lack of settledness), wafḍ (a chapter Ibn Fāris himself calls 'three disparate words': haste, a scattered band of people, a quiver), and wafʿ (a fire-rag, a basket, a bottle-stopper).uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
The two-letter nucleus و-ف groups wafr (abundance, fullness), wafz (haste, lack of settledness), wafḍ (a chapter Ibn Fāris himself calls 'three disparate words': haste, a scattered band of people, a quiver), and wafʿ (a fire-rag, a basket, a bottle-stopper). These give no coherent shared sense with wafq beyond the bare fact of alphabetic neighborhood, and Ibn Fāris's own admission of disparateness for wafḍ warns against reading strong bi-radical unity here. Among the triliteral permutations, waqf ('to dwell, remain fixed in a place'), fawq (height, and separately 'return'), and qafw ('one thing following another') at least share with wafq a notion of two things held in a determinate relative position — matched, stacked, halted together, or sequenced. This resonance is only a juxtaposition in the manner of Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation, not an established etymology.
Draws on: ibnFaris_nucleus · ibnFaris_permutations
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, chapters w-f-r/w-f-z/w-f-ḍ/w-f-ʿ
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, bāb al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsHebrew has a root פוק (p-w-q) whose Hiphil הפיק means 'to obtain, procure, bring about' — used of one who 'obtains favor from the LORD' (Prov.plausible
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
Hebrew has a root פוק (p-w-q) whose Hiphil הפיק means 'to obtain, procure, bring about' — used of one who 'obtains favor from the LORD' (Prov. 8:35) — a sense strikingly close to Arabic tawfīq, 'God's granting of a successful outcome.' The consonant inventory matches Arabic w-f-q under the regular f~p correspondence, but the first two radicals are transposed (Hebrew p-w-q vs. Arabic w-f-q), so this is at best a plausible metathesis-cognate, not a clean one-to-one match. No confident cognate is identifiable in Aramaic, Akkadian, Geʿez or Old South Arabian for this specific root. There is no reason to treat the Arabic word as a loan; it reads as a native Arabic derivational family.
Draws on: comparative
- Brown-Driver-Briggs, s.v. פוק
Quranic exegesisAt Q11:88, Shuʿayb's wa mā tawfīqī illā bi-llāh is read by al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī as a disclaimer of self-sufficiency: whatever success (rushd, iṣāba) attends his call is God's act of aligning his will and capacity with the right course, not his own doing.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q11:88, Shuʿayb's wa mā tawfīqī illā bi-llāh is read by al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī as a disclaimer of self-sufficiency: whatever success (rushd, iṣāba) attends his call is God's act of aligning his will and capacity with the right course, not his own doing. At Q4:35, on the arbiters sent to a couple in discord, yuwaffiqi Allāhu baynahumā is glossed as God's bringing their hearts into concord (ijtimāʿ al-qulūb ʿalā al-ulfa), the verb carrying its ordinary sense of matching two estranged things. At Q4:62 the disputants swear they intended only iḥsānan wa-tawfīqan — good conduct and reconciliation/concord between believers — which al-Zamakhsharī takes as a claim to have sought to bring people's affairs into agreement, not personal benefit. At Q78:26, jazāʾan wifāqan is read by al-Rāghib and al-Zamakhsharī as recompense precisely matched (muṭābiq) to the deeds that earned it — the one occurrence where wifāq denotes exact correspondence rather than divine assistance.
Philosophy & kalāmTawfīq became a standing term in Ashʿarī and Māturīdī kalām for God's creating in the servant the capacity and inclination (khalq al-qudra wa-l-dāʿiya) that results in obedience, set in explicit contrast to khidhlān, God's withholding of that assistance.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Tawfīq became a standing term in Ashʿarī and Māturīdī kalām for God's creating in the servant the capacity and inclination (khalq al-qudra wa-l-dāʿiya) that results in obedience, set in explicit contrast to khidhlān, God's withholding of that assistance. Al-Ghazālī treats tawfīq among the 'doors' of divine grace in his discussions of human acts, without collapsing free choice (ikhtiyār) into pure determinism. The term thus sits inside the broader kalām debate over the createdness of human acts and the relation of divine decree to human responsibility. It is not a term with a comparable technical role in Avicennan falsafa.
Draws on: kalam
Akbarian readingNo formal Iṣṭilāḥ definition of this root is given in Ibn ʿArabī's own lexicon here.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
No formal Iṣṭilāḥ definition of this root is given in Ibn ʿArabī's own lexicon here. In Faṣṣ Ādam he closes his account of what has been entrusted to him in the book by disclaiming further capacity — 'had I sought to add to that I could not have, for the Presence (al-ḥaḍra) forbids it' — and names God directly as al-muwaffiq, 'there is no Lord besides Him.' The placement is telling: tawfīq is invoked exactly at the point where Ibn ʿArabī denies that the book's content is his own achievement, making 'success' here not a moral reward but the condition of possibility of unveiling (kashf) itself — the author's very writing is represented as God's alignment of his capacity with what the Presence permits, not a result of personal effort.
Draws on: fassAdam
Reference