Glossary: N

nabī

Nabī (prophet) is of the faʿīl pattern derived from nabaʾ (tiding), so called because he has tidings of the unseen through revelation from God; it is also claimed to derive from nubuwwa, meaning sublimity. → Read at 19:41

nafar

Al-Rāghib: a "team" literally means a group of men small enough to escape notice, and it can be applied to any group of three or more men, women, humans, or jinn. → Read at 46:29

nafkh

Blowing air into a body; here a metaphor for the divine act of originating the human spirit and linking it to the body. The spirit is not literally inside the body like air blown into a vessel. → Read at 15:29

nafs

From its usages, nafs originally meant the very thing to which it is annexed (nafs al-shayʾ is the thing itself); it was later used for the individual human being, composed of spirit and body, and then for the human spirit in particular, as the basis of one's life, knowledge and strength. → Read at 21:35

naḥr

According to Sunni and Shia narrations, naḥr here means raising the hands to the neck when saying Allāh akbar in the ritual prayer. → Read at 108:2

naʿīm

Bliss is divine allegiance (wilāyah), and the garden of bliss is the paradise of wilāyah, fitting that those brought near are the people of God's wilāyah. → Read at 56:12

najd

Najd means “a path on a plateau”; the two najds are the paths of good and evil, so called because both require effort, and God has taught them to man through inspiration. → Read at 90:10

najwā

A verbal noun meaning to converse in whispers or confidentially; a secret conversation. → Read at 58:7

nakāl

Nakāl is a type of punishment that deters whoever sees or hears of it from qualifying for its like; Pharaoh was seized with it in this world by drowning and in the hereafter. → Read at 79:25

al-nashʾah al-ukhrā

The second genesis is the new creation in the Hereafter where recompense takes place; it "lies with Him" as part of His irrevocable decree. → Read at 53:47

nasīʾ

From nasaʾ, to delay or put off: a sacred month whose prohibition on fighting the pre-Islamic Arabs delayed, perhaps moving the sanctity of some sacred months to other months. → Read at 9:37

naskh

() Al-naskh literally is removal or annulment (as the sun 'removes' the shadow); as a term of jurisprudence, abrogation means showing that the time of an order has come to its end, so that it is no longer valid or in force; it does not obliterate the verse, only cancels the order it promulgated. → Read
() Laws laid down in some religions and abrogated by later ones were laws with a specific period of applicability for a particular people at a particular time; abrogation simply means that this period has come to an end, not that the law is now false, so an abrogated law is always true. → Read

naṣr allāh

The believers "helping God" means helping His Prophet in traversing the path he traverses to God with certainty and insight (). → Read at 61:14

nifāq

Al-munāfiq is an active participle from nifāq, which in Qur'anic convention means manifesting belief and hiding disbelief. → Read at 63:1

niʿmah

() Contains a hint of softness, goodness and suitability, apparently from naʿūma (softness). It is used for humans, who can distinguish benefit from harm; wealth or children may be a blessing for one person and a curse for another. → Read
() Something is a niʿmah for a person if it is harmonious with them and good for them, which is only so if it is used in a way that brings happiness; used otherwise, it becomes a cause of misery, though a blessing in itself. → Read

nisyān

() To forget something literally means for its image to vanish from memory, but it is also used for paying no attention to something of importance, which is the sense here. → Read
() Forgetting is the fading from consciousness of what was known, along with the disappearance of its cause; it is also applied broadly to any disregard of something without considering its effects. → Read

nubuwwah

A messenger (rasūl) delivers a message from God to the people, and a prophet (nabī) delivers news of the unseen regarding religion and its truths; so a messenger must be a prophet, and once prophethood ends, messengership ends too. → Read at 33:40

nukur

Al-Rāghib: inkār is the opposite of ʿirfān; originally something enters the heart that the heart does not recognize, a kind of ignorance; nukur can also mean something difficult to comprehend. → Read at 54:6

nūr

Light (nūr) is that which is manifest by its essence and makes other things manifest; the meaning was generalized to the senses and the intellect, and since existence manifests things, God, who existentiates and illuminates all things, is the independent light of the heavens and the earth. → Read at 24:35

nuṭq

Speech in its literal sense is the expression of a thought in the mind by verbal communication, requiring that the speaker know something and disclose it. Though al-Rāghib says speech is attributed to non-humans only figuratively, the verses apparently mean it literally, so the limbs' testimony is genuine speech disclosing knowledge acquired before. → Read at 41:21

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Glossary: N