Root · 102 in the Quran · 121 in 23 texts of the library
ولدA sound root denoting offspring and progeny, covering singular and plural, male and … (root wld)
الواو واللام والدال : أصل صحيح ، وهو دليل النجل والنسل ، ثم يقاس عليه غيره
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of و ل د that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
37 words7 verbs5 verbal nouns6 participles2 places and instruments2 intensives and elatives8 other nouns6 plurals1 relative or abstract
- وَلَدchild; son
- أَوْلَاد—
- وَالِدwoman, and any pregnant animal, having a child or young one, or children or …
- وَلَدَshe (a woman, S, L, or mother, L, or any animal having an ear, as …
- وَالِدَي—
The whole family8 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs7وَلَدَ · تَوَلَّدَ · وَلَّدَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Form I vowels: فَعَلَ يَفْعِلُ (a – i; the imperfect from the Quranic Arabic Corpus)
- وَلَدَshe (a woman, S, L, or mother, L, or any animal having an ear, as …LaneForm IQurʾān ×9library ×7LaneIbn Fāris
- تَوَلَّدَthe thing became generated, or engendered, or producedLaneForm Vlibrary ×4LaneIbn Fāris
- وَلَّدَhe assisted her namely a woman, A, L, Msb, and a ewe or she-goat, S, A, L, …LaneForm IILaneIbn Fāris
- أَوْلَدَshe attained to the time of bringing forthLaneForm IVLane
Verbal nouns5تَوَلُّد · تَوْلِيد · إِيلَاد
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَوَلُّدgeneration; productionautoForm Vlibrary ×2Ibn Fāris
- تَوْلِيدproduction; generationautoForm II · Lane: inf. n.library ×1Lane
- إِيلَادForm IV · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- وَلَادForm I · Lane: inf. n.Lane
- وِلَادَهForm I · Lane: inf. n.Lane
Participles6وَالِد · وَالِدَي · مَوْلُود
The one who does it, and the one it is done to.grammar →
- وَالِدwoman, and any pregnant animal, having a child or young one, or children or …Laneactive, Form IQurʾān ×14library ×13Lane
- وَالِدَيactive, Form IQurʾān ×10
- مَوْلُودnewborn infantautopassive, Form IQurʾān ×3library ×1Lane
- مُوَلَّدman, and an Arab female, not of mere Arabian extractionLanepassive, Form IVlibrary ×1Lane
Place, time and instrument2مَوْلِد · مِيلَاد
Where or when it happens, and what it is done with: the m- nouns.grammar →
- مَوْلِدthe place of birth of a manLanenoun of place or timelibrary ×1Lane
- مِيلَادthe time of birth of a manLanenoun of instrumentLane
Intensives, qualities and the elative2وَلِيد · وَلُود
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
Other nouns8وَلَد · وَلِيدَة · وَلْد
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
- وَلَدchild; sonautonounQurʾān ×56library ×27LaneIbn Fāris
- وَلِيدَةnounLaneIbn Fāris
- وَلْدnounLaneIbn Fāris
- وُلْدman's people, tribe, or familyLanenounLaneIbn Fāris
Plurals6أَوْلَاد · وِلْدَان · وَالِدَات
Broken plurals rebuild the word on a new pattern; sound plurals add an ending.grammar →
- أَوْلَادbroken plural of وَلَدQurʾān ×23library ×6
- وِلْدَانbroken plural of وَلِيدQurʾān ×6
- وَالِدَاتsound plural of وَالِدَةQurʾān ×1
- وُلْدbroken plural of وَالِدLaneIbn Fāris
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 21 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-walad (الولد) is a noun that encompasses both singular and plural, male and female alike.
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-walad (الولد) may be singular or plural, and likewise al-wuld (الولد) with ḍammah.
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Wāw, lām, dāl (و ل د): a sound root, indicating offspring and progeny (al-najl wa-l-nasl).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-walad (الولد): the one born [offspring].
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-walīd (الوليد): the boy at the time he is born.
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 ل د
الواو واللام والدال : أصل صحيح ، وهو دليل النجل والنسل ، ثم يقاس عليه غيره
w-l-d: a sound root, and it is the indicator of offspring and progeny, and other things are then measured upon it. 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
- لlāmedge of the tongue · voiced, in betweenI. Jinnī
- دdāltongue-tip, roots of the teeth · 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 ↗
ل
ومن حافة اللسان من أدناها إلى منتهى طرف اللسان، من بينها وبين ما يليها من الحنك الأعلى، مما فويق الضاحك والناب والرباعية والثنية، مخرج اللام
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, just above the premolar, the canine, the lateral and the central incisor, is the place of the lām. Ibn Jinnī, lines 977–978 ↗
د
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا مخرج الطاء، والدال، والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26559 ↗
ومما بين طرف اللسان وأصول الثنايا، مخرج الطاء والدال والتاء
From between the tip of the tongue and the roots of the front teeth is the place of the ṭāʾ, the dāl and the tāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 982 ↗
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 2582ل
Level of existence: السماء الثالثة · the third heaven
Divine Name: القاهر · the Subduer (al-Qāhir)
Lunar mansion: العوا · al-ʿAwwā
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64654Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 7 line 2576 ↗
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 2577د
Level of existence: السماء الدنيا · the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā)
Divine Name: المبين · the Clarifier (al-Mubīn)
Lunar mansion: الأكليل · al-Iklīl
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64682Spheres 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.
ل
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي حصول المتكلم على شيء عظيم، وتكون إشارة إلى شيء عظيم.
It is the speaker's attaining of something great, and it serves as an indication of something great.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي لا نهاية له.
It is an indication of the thing that has no end.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة من المتكلم إلى وجود ذاته أو إلى ذاته.
It is an indication by the speaker of the existence of his self, or of his self.
د
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى خارج عن الذات.
It is an indication of something external to the self.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى ما هو قليل أو قبيح ومعه غضب فيهما.
It is an indication of what is small or ugly, accompanied by anger in both cases.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى ما في الذات أو إلى ما هو داخل عليها أو إلى ما هو قريب منها.
It is an indication of what is in the self, or what is entering upon it, or what is near to it.
Two-letter nucleus14 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterو ل
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 34847 ↗
- ولمالواو واللام والميم ، فيه كلمات تتشاكل يقولون : الولم : الحزام والولم : حبل يشد بين التصدير والسفيف لئلا يقلقا ويقال الولم : كل خيط شددت به شيئا وليس L34848
- ولهالواو واللام والهاء : أصل صحيح يدل على اضطراب شيء أو ذهابهL34853
- ولىالواو واللام والياء : أصل صحيح يدل على قربQ 232 · L34860
- ولبالواو واللام والباء يقولون : إن فيها بابين أحدهما يدل على نماء ، والآخر على ذهاب . أما الأول فالوالبة : الزرعة تنبت من عروق الزرعة الأولى ووالبة الإبلL34878
- ولثالواو واللام والثاء ، فيه كلمتانL34886
- ولجالواو واللام والجيم : كلمة تدل على دخول شيءQ 14 · L34889
- ولحالواو واللام والحاء يقولون : الوليح : الجوالق ، الواحدة وليحةL34894
- ولخالواو واللام والخاء يدل على اختلاطL34898
- ولدالواو واللام والدال : أصل صحيح ، وهو دليل النجل والنسل ، ثم يقاس عليه غيرهQ 102 · L34902
- ولذالواو واللام والذال من غرائب ابن دريد : الولد : سرعة في المشي والحركة ، وولذ يلذ .L34907
- ولسالواو واللام والسين : كلمة تدل على ضرب من السير الولسان : العنق في السير .L34910
- ولعالواو واللام والعين : كلمتان تدل إحداهما على اللهج بالشيء ، والأخرى على لون من الألوان .L34913
- ولغالواو واللام والغين : كلمة واحدة ، وهي قولهم : ولغ الكلب في الإناء يلغ ، ويولغ إذا أولغه صاحبه أنشدنا على بن إبراهيم القطانL34921
- ولقالواو واللام والقاف : كلمة تدل على إسراع وخفةL34927
In the sister scriptsHebrew ו ל דSyriac ܘ ܠ ܕ
| Arabic | و ل د |
| Hebrew | ו ל ד |
| Syriac | ܘ ܠ ܕ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩥 𐩡 𐩵 |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 𐤋 𐤃 |
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 gives walad as a single noun serving singular and plural, male and female, and glosses walad al-rajul (and wildatuhu) as also meaning his kin (rahṭ), citing the Qur'anic gloss of 'māluhu wa-waladuhu' as 'his clan';well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl already gives walad as a single noun serving singular and plural, male and female, and glosses walad al-rajul (and wildatuhu) as also meaning his kin (rahṭ), citing the Qur'anic gloss of 'māluhu wa-waladuhu' as 'his clan'; walīd/walīda are the young child and slave-girl, lidda is one's age-mate, shāh wālid a pregnant ewe, and mawallada a girl raised among the Arabs and acculturated to them. Al-Jawharī preserves the same singular/plural fluidity and adds the proverb waladuka man dammā ʿaqibayka ('your true child is the one whose birth cost you your own blood'), distinguishing the biological child from an adopted one, plus the idiom hum fī amrin lā yunādā walīduhu from horse-racing usage. Ibn Fāris fixes the root's core as al-nasl wa-l-nasl (offspring/progeny), applicable to one or many, and notes tawallada l-shayʾu ʿan al-shayʾ, 'a thing arose/derived from another' — an extended, generative sense. Al-Rāghib specifies al-walad as al-mawlūd for young and old alike, notes its Qur'anic extension to an adopted child (28:9), and fixes wālid/wālida/wālidān for father, mother, and both parents (71:28). Ibn Manẓūr records the dispute over whether walīd applies to both sexes or only the male child, and confirms wilāda/wilādah as the bringing-forth process; Lane closes with the precise verbal paradigm walad-at, aor. talidu, inf. n. wilāda(h)/wilād(un)/iladah/mawlid/lidda, restricting the maternal sense to any female with a true ear (distinguishing higher animals from those with mere ear-holes).
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, root w-l-d
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ, root w-l-d
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root w-l-d
- al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, root w-l-d
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, root w-l-d
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, root w-l-d
Letters & soundAl-Akbarī pairs wāw with the determination of ranks, stations and waystations, lām with the third heaven, and dāl with the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā);speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
Al-Akbarī pairs wāw with the determination of ranks, stations and waystations, lām with the third heaven, and dāl with the lowest heaven (al-samāʾ al-dunyā); al-Dabbāgh reads wāw as the intertwined things within the human being (veins, fingers), lām as the speaker's attainment of something great, and dāl as an indication of something external to the self. Read together, wld's letters could be taken to stage a descent — wāw's intertwined internal ranks, through lām's attainment of something great, issuing in dāl's exteriorization beyond the self — a shape that echoes birth as the emergence of a new, external being from what was internally intertwined. This is offered strictly as speculative sound-symbolism in the manner of Ibn Jinnī's imsās and Ibn ʿArabī's letters in the Breath; it has no standing in mainstream historical linguistics.
Draws on: dabbagh_fatha · akbari198
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, chapter on imsās al-alfāẓ (link not verified)
Root structureIbn Fāris's neighboring w-l- chapters range widely: wlm (a binding girth-strap), wlh (agitation, distraction), wly (nearness — the root of walāya), wlj (entering), wlkh (mixing), and wld itself (offspring/progeny).plausible
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
Ibn Fāris's neighboring w-l- chapters range widely: wlm (a binding girth-strap), wlh (agitation, distraction), wly (nearness — the root of walāya), wlj (entering), wlkh (mixing), and wld itself (offspring/progeny). Set beside wly (nearness) and wlj (entering), wld's sense of bringing-forth suggests, only by juxtaposition, birth as a coming-near or entering-into-existence rather than a mere biological event — a resonance Ibn Jinnī's greater derivation would notice without thereby proving common origin. Among the permutations, dwl (turning, alternation of fortune/state, dawla) is attested twice and dlw (drawing water gently, by extension a mild approach) four times, while wdl, lwd and ldw are unattested; dwl's sense of a 'turning into a new state' sits suggestively near wld's sense of a coming-into-being, again as juxtaposition only.
Draws on: nucleusSiblings · permutations
Semitic kin & loanwordsThis root is one of the best-attested across Semitic: Hebrew yālad (ילד, showing the regular Arabic w- ~ Hebrew y- correspondence in I-w roots) means 'to bear, beget';well attested
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
This root is one of the best-attested across Semitic: Hebrew yālad (ילד, showing the regular Arabic w- ~ Hebrew y- correspondence in I-w roots) means 'to bear, beget'; Aramaic/Syriac yld carries the same sense; Akkadian walādu 'to give birth, to beget' preserves the initial w- directly; and Geʿez walada 'to beget, bear' (whence wald, 'son') matches Arabic closely in both form and sense. This is inherited Proto-Semitic vocabulary, not a loanword in any direction.
Draws on: comparative
Quranic exegesisAl-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī treat verses denying that God has taken a walad (e.g.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
Al-Ṭabarī and al-Rāzī treat verses denying that God has taken a walad (e.g. concerning 'mā ttakhadha Allāhu min walad') as central to tanzīh, the refutation of both pagan claims of divine offspring and, in al-Rāzī, Christian sonship-doctrine. At 2:233 (wa-l-wālidātu yurḍiʿna awlādahunna) the exegetes read wālidāt as nursing mothers and derive rulings on the duration and support of breastfeeding. Al-Zamakhsharī, glossing inheritance verses such as 4:11 (in kāna lahu walad), follows the lexicographers in noting that walad covers singular and plural, male and female, which matters directly for the distribution of shares. Al-Rāghib connects wa-lidin wa-mā walad (90:3) to Adam and his progeny (or, on another reading, the Prophet and his community), taking the oath by 'a father and what he begot' as a testimony to the value of generativity itself.
Draws on: quran occurrences
Philosophy & kalāmBeyond the general theological insistence that God has no walad, the derived verbal noun tawallud (generation) became a technical term among the Muʿtazila in their theory of human acts: an agent's direct act (mubāshir) may produce a further effect, a mutawallid (generated effect), causally attributed back to the agent though not directly performed by him — a doctrine developed especially by Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī and debated by later mutakallimūn discussing moral and causal responsibility for such generated effects.plausible
The word as a technical term in falsafa and theology.
Beyond the general theological insistence that God has no walad, the derived verbal noun tawallud (generation) became a technical term among the Muʿtazila in their theory of human acts: an agent's direct act (mubāshir) may produce a further effect, a mutawallid (generated effect), causally attributed back to the agent though not directly performed by him — a doctrine developed especially by Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī and debated by later mutakallimūn discussing moral and causal responsibility for such generated effects.
Draws on: kalam
- al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, on tawallud in Muʿtazilite theory of acts
Akbarian readingIbn ʿArabī opens with wa-lammā aṭlaʿanī Allāhu subḥānahu wa-taʿālā fī sirrī ʿalā mā awdaʿa fī hādhā l-imāmi l-wālidi l-akbar, calling Adam 'this greatest fathering imam' (al-imām al-wālid al-akbar) — the archetypal progenitor in whom God deposited what is subsequently disclosed to Ibn ʿArabī's inner secret.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
Ibn ʿArabī opens with wa-lammā aṭlaʿanī Allāhu subḥānahu wa-taʿālā fī sirrī ʿalā mā awdaʿa fī hādhā l-imāmi l-wālidi l-akbar, calling Adam 'this greatest fathering imam' (al-imām al-wālid al-akbar) — the archetypal progenitor in whom God deposited what is subsequently disclosed to Ibn ʿArabī's inner secret. The root's sense of begetting is thus lifted from biology to cosmology: Adam is wālid not merely as first human father but as the imām through whom the entire human form, and its inherited secrets, is engendered for all who come after. No separate Iṣṭilāḥ definition of the root is given among the supplied Akbarian terminology.
Draws on: inFassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam (opening lines)
Reference