The word for fasting in Islamic literature can appear in one of two forms – either الصوم al-sawm, or الصيام al-siyaam. So what is the difference between them, and can they be used interchangeably? Both the word الصوم al-sawm and الصيام al-siyaam are verbal noun forms from the same root – ص و م s …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, The word ‘love’ appeared as a noun in the Qur’an ten times – of those ten, nine were using the word hubb حبّ, as in the verse, وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ أَندَاداً يُحِبُّونَهُمْ كَحُبِّ اللّهِ And of mankind are some who take (for worship) others besides Allah …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, To look back to the original meaning of a word is to embark on more than just a linguistic voyage; in some cases, tracing a word back to its original meaning is actually the key to unlocking one of the treasures of the guidance of the Qur’an. For example, Allaah said …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, The Arabs have a number of words to express specific ways of hitting. When reading the below, pay attention also to any instances of al-ishtiqaaq al-akbar to increase your wonder and marvel at the richness of this language. To hit on the front part of the head using the ball of …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, One aspect of the miraculousness of the Qur’anic language lies in the precision of its words. As al-Suyuti said in al-Itqaan fee ‘Uloom al-Qur’aan, “It is possible to convey a single meaning with a variety of words, some more expressive than others. Likewise for the two parts – subject and predicate …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, There is a category of words in Arabic known as al-ad`daad الأضداد. They are a type of ishtiraak in which a single word shares different shades of meaning, but what is special about the ad`daad is that the same word is applied to two completely opposite meanings. For example, the word …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, One of the most fascinating aspects of Arabic in my eyes, is finding the relationship between words that come from the same root but do not seem to have an obvious link in their meaning. The study of etymology in any language is fascinating in itself, but due to the root …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, As seen previously, the Arabic language is very precise in its lexical references owing to its rich vocabulary. Often a single concept may be taken – such as love, infancy, bravery etc – and different words found corresponding to the subtle differences in the degrees of that concept. And perhaps this …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Arabic often has the ability to convey a very precise meaning using a single world, due to the richness and breadth of its vocabulary. In line with this, scholars of the language would often compile lexicons based on concepts shared between words rather than alphabetically, and thus the thesaurus genre in …
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāh, Many languages of the world contain words that reflect certain concepts that are hard to capture by a single word in any other language. One example is the word ‘ilunga’ in the Tshiluba language, which means ‘a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate …
