Necessary Terminology

ضروری اصطلاحات

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Before engaging with the substantive discussions of this work, it is necessary to clarify certain technical terms that will be employed throughout. Every word (lafz) has three aspects: its verbal form (lafz), its meaning (ma'na), and its referent (misdāq) — i.e., the actual entity to which it points in reality. The term misdāq is synonymous with madlūl (the signified).

The word wujūd (being/existence) is used in three distinct senses in this work: (1) Mā bihi al-mawjūdiyya — that by virtue of which a thing is existent; i.e., the ground or principle of existence itself. (2) Kawn or Husūl — the coming-into-existence or attainment of something; the fact of a thing's having come to be. (3) Zuhūr — the manifestation or outward appearance of a thing.

Similarly, dhāt (essence/self) refers to a thing in itself; sifat (attribute) is a quality or description of that essence; and ism (name) covers both the essence and its attributes together. Allah is the all-comprehensive Name (ism jāmi') encompassing the Divine Essence and all Divine Attributes.

An attribute may be of two kinds: (1) Sifat indimāmiyya — an additive attribute, one that is genuinely superadded to the essence and distinct from it. (2) Sifat intizā'iyya — an abstractive attribute, one that is conceptually extracted from the essence itself without any real addition in the external world. A false or fictitious attribution (kadhib) is one that has no basis in reality whatsoever.

Jawhar (substance) denotes a thing that exists in itself, not in a substrate. 'Arad (accident) denotes a thing that exists only in a substrate and cannot subsist independently. This distinction, fundamental to Islamic philosophy, will recur throughout the discussion.