Lesson 4 · Words and their meanings, and the four kinds of opposition
Source: Book pp. 15–19.
1. One word, how many meanings?
| Kind | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Mukhtaṣṣ (single-meaning) | one word, one meaning | ḥadīd (iron), ḥayawān (animal) |
| Mushtarak (shared) | one word, several meanings, all equally original | ʿayn: eye, spring of water, gold |
| Manqūl (transferred) | an old meaning, then a new one linked to it, and the new one now dominates | ṣalāh: supplication → the ritual prayer; ḥajj: setting out → the pilgrimage |
| Murtajal (improvised) | moved to a new meaning with no link to the old | most personal names |
| Ḥaqīqa / majāz (literal / figurative) | one meaning is the word's own; another is borrowed through a link, but not often enough to become the word's meaning, so it needs a context (qarīna) | "lion" for a brave man |
Manqūl in more detail. It is named after whoever moved it: ʿurfī (common usage), sharʿī (the Sharīʿa: ṣalāh, zakāh, ḥajj), naḥwī (grammar: "verb"), and so on. It comes in two kinds:
- Taʿyīnī: moved on purpose, by a decision (most technical terms of a science).
- Taʿayyunī: nobody decided; people kept using the word in a figurative sense until the new meaning came to mind first, with no context needed.
The rule for scholars (p. 15). Do not use a mushtarak or figurative word in a definition or a proof unless the context makes the meaning certain. The same goes for a manqūl word whose old meaning is still alive. Better still: avoid figurative language in any scientific argument.
ʿAqīda link. Many arguments turn on this table.
- Īmān is a sharʿī manqūl: in language it means assent (taṣdīq); in the Sharīʿa it names a defined reality (and the schools differ on whether deeds are part of that reality). An argument that slides between the two meanings proves nothing.
- Whether words like yad (hand) or istiwāʾ in the texts on Allah's attributes are read as ḥaqīqa (with the modality left to Allah) or as majāz (with taʾwīl) is one of the great debates of ʿaqīda. Logic does not settle it, but it tells you the first question to ask: which meaning is intended, and what is the qarīna?
2. Two words compared: tarāduf and tabāyun
- Tarāduf (synonymy): several words, one meaning (insān and bashar: "human").
- Tabāyun (difference): as many meanings as words: each word has its own meaning.
Careful: this tabāyun of words is not the tabāyun of instances in Lesson 7. "Human" and "rational" are mutabāyin as words (two different concepts), yet every human is rational and every rational being is human.
3. How two different meanings relate
When two meanings differ, you can look at them in three ways:
- Tamāthul (likeness): you look at what they share.
- Same species: mithlān (Muḥammad and Jaʿfar, alike in humanity).
- Same genus: mutajānisān (human and horse, alike in animality).
- Same quality or form: mutashābihān.
- Takhāluf (plain difference): you look at how they differ, and they are not locked in the special relation of opposition. Some can meet in one thing (sweet and black meet in a ripe date); some cannot (human and horse), yet they are still not technical "opposites", because opposites are attributes that take turns on one subject.
- Taqābul (opposition): two meanings that cannot be true of one thing, at one time, from
one aspect. Each condition matters:
- One thing: black and white sit together on a printed page, but not on the same spot.
- One aspect: a man is a father (of his son) and a son (of his father).
- One time: water is cold, then hot.
4. The four kinds of opposition
| Kind | Example | Both true? | Both false? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naqīḍān (contradictories) | human / not-human; existent / non-existent | never | never: there is no middle |
| Malaka wa ʿadam (possession and privation) | sight / blindness; married / unmarried | never | yes, of a thing not fit for the possession: a wall neither sees nor is blind |
| Ḍiddān (contraries) | hot / cold; black / white; courage / cowardice | never | yes: lukewarm, grey |
| Mutaḍāyifān (correlatives) | father / son; cause / effect; above / below | never, from one aspect | sometimes: a rock is neither father nor son |
What sets each apart:
- Privation is not just absence. Blindness is the absence of sight in what should see. That is why we never call a stone blind, or ignorant.
- Contraries are two positive attributes taking turns on one subject, and you can understand either one without the other.
- Correlatives can only be understood together: you cannot grasp "father" without "son", or "cause" without "effect". Some correlatives can be denied together (a rock is neither father nor son); some cannot (every existent is either a cause or an effect, says the book).
Book slip (p. 19): "we can define contraries as ... the intellection of one requires the intellection of another" is the definition of correlatives. Also on p. 19, the book's example that God is "neither above nor below anything" reflects the author's own theological position; the Sunni schools differ on ʿuluww (Allah's being above), so that example is best left aside here.
ʿAqīda link: a real debate that turns on this table. A classic argument for the attributes runs: if Allah were not Living, Knowing, Hearing and Seeing, He would be described by their opposites (death, ignorance, deafness, blindness), and these are defects.
- The objection: hearing and deafness are malaka wa ʿadam. They can both be denied of something not fit to hear, like a wall. So denying hearing does not force deafness.
- The reply given by the theologians: whatever is not even fit to receive a perfection is more deficient than what is fit and lacks it. A wall that cannot hear is lower than a deaf man. So the escape route only makes things worse.
You cannot follow either side without knowing the four kinds of opposition.
Quiz 4
- Which kind of word is it (mukhtaṣṣ, mushtarak, manqūl, murtajal, majāz)?
- a) ʿayn, which can mean eye, spring or gold
- b) ṣalāh, used for the ritual prayer
- c) "a sea" for a very generous man
- d) ḥadīd (iron)
- What is the difference between manqūl taʿyīnī and manqūl taʿayyunī?
- "Human" and "rational" are mutabāyin as words. Does that mean no human is rational? Explain.
- Name the opposition, then say whether both sides can be false of the same thing:
- a) knowing / ignorant
- b) existent / non-existent
- c) hot / cold
- d) creator / created
- Why do we not call a stone "ignorant"?
- Explain the three conditions of opposition (one thing, one time, one aspect) with your own examples.
- In the argument "if Allah did not hear, He would be deaf", what is the objection based on malaka wa ʿadam, and how did the theologians reply?
- Review: "al-Khāliq" pointing to knowledge and power: muṭābaqa, taḍammun or iltizām?
Show answers
- a) mushtarak · b) manqūl (sharʿī) · c) majāz · d) mukhtaṣṣ
- Taʿyīnī was moved to its new meaning by a deliberate decision (technical terms). Taʿayyunī moved by itself, through so much figurative use that the new meaning came to mind first.
- No. Tabāyun of words only means each word has its own concept. In their instances the two are equal: every human is rational and every rational being is human.
- a) malaka wa ʿadam; yes, both can be false of something not fit to know (a stone) · b) naqīḍān; no, never both false · c) ḍiddān; yes (lukewarm) · d) mutaḍāyifān; they cannot be true of one thing from one aspect
- Ignorance is a privation: the absence of knowledge in what is fit to know. A stone is not fit to know, so it is neither knowing nor ignorant.
- For example: the same paper is black (the ink) and white (the page), so not one thing in the strict sense; a man is a father and a son, but from different aspects; the same water is cold now and hot later, so not one time.
- Objection: hearing and deafness are possession and privation, so both can be denied of what is not fit to hear. Reply: whatever is not even fit to receive a perfection is more deficient than what is fit and lacks it, so the objection does not save the denier.
- Iltizām.