Glossary: T

ṭāʿah

() To obey means to follow; al-Rāghib says it usually refers to following one in authority, and perhaps it can be reversed, as here, for the one followed acting as the follower desires. ʿInat ("to suffer") means sin and destruction. → Read
() Obedience to one obeyed is a kind of worship of him; since none is worthy of worship but God, there is no obedience except to God or whomever He commands be obeyed. → Read

tabāb

Tabb and tabāb mean loss and destruction (al-Jawharī) or perpetual loss (al-Rāghib); the perishing of the hands means one’s efforts are rendered void, and the second tabba means the loss of oneself, everlasting destruction. → Read at 111:1

ṭabaq

Ṭabaq means “something that matches another thing” or the state of correspondence; here it means the sequentially connected stages humans pass on their journey to their Lord: this world, death, barzakh, the hereafter, reckoning and retribution. → Read at 84:19

tabāraka

When God is described as tabāraka, it refers to the abundant good He bestows on His creatures, exclusive to Him; as the best khāliq, His abundant good is found in His measuring, by which He gives things existence in the right proportion. → Read at 23:14

tabarruj

() Majmaʿ al-bayān: tabarruj is when a woman displays her beauties that should be covered; its root meaning is ẓuhūr (appearance), and burj (tower) is from the same root because it is high and visible. → Read
() Tabarruj means to flaunt or display one's self before the people, just as the related word burj (tower, constellation) describes something visible to an onlooker. → Read

tabāruk

The blessedness of something is an abundant emanation and issuance of goodness and blessings from it. → Read at 67:1

tabattul

Tabattul is interpreted as “cutting off from everything else and connecting to God”; according to some narrations from the Ahl al-Bayt it means raising the hands toward God and entreating Him with humility. → Read at 73:8

tabayyun

Per the Ṣiḥāḥ, to verify means to clarify or check; transitively it means to make a matter plain, intransitively to become plain. A fāsiq is said to be one who has gone out from obedience to sinfulness, and nabaʾ is an important report. → Read at 49:6

tabdhīr

Majmaʿ al-bayān: tabdhīr means to scatter wastefully; its root meaning is scattering something the way seeds (badhr) are scattered, but it is used particularly for scattering done in a destructive way, so what is spent constructively is not tabdhīr even if it is a lot. → Read at 17:26

tabdīl

Al-Rāghib: ibdāl, tabdīl, tabaddul and istibdāl mean placing one thing in the place of another; more general than ʿiwaḍ (compensation), it can mean change in general, even without a replacement. → Read at 16:101

tadabbur

Literally to take one thing after another; here it may mean pondering on one verse after another, or on a verse repeatedly. Since the aim is to show there is no discrepancy in the Qur'an, pondering on one verse after another seems more appropriate. → Read at 4:82

taḍarruʿ

To express humiliation and servility, derived from ḍarāʿah (weakness and abasement); khufyah is being hidden and disguised. → Read at 7:55

tadbīr

() To direct a thing means to place one thing behind (fī dābir) another and to bring one affair after another; it goes back to the coming into being of existent things one after another, like a chain extending between the heavens and the earth. → Read
() Since tadbīr (direction, management) is mentioned without qualification, it means management of the world in an absolute sense, which befits only the angels, who direct affairs under God’s command. → Read

tadhkirah

Tadhkirah means creating remembrance in someone who has forgotten something: human nature (fiṭra) instinctively grasps God, His Unity, the truth of religion, prophethood and resurrection, but attachment to the earth and the world's embellishments make the hearts forget what was ingrained in them. → Read at 20:3

taḍlīl

Taḍlīl is synonymous with iḍlāl (misguiding): God took their efforts off course so that they did not reach their goal and destroyed themselves instead of the Kaʿbah. → Read at 105:2

tafaqqud

Al-Rāghib: tafaqqud means taʿahhud (inquiring, following up), except that tafaqqud is attending to the loss or lack (fiqdān) of something, while taʿahhud is attending to a previous tie or situation. → Read at 27:20

tafassuḥ

Making ample room, spaciousness; making room in an assembly is widening the place for another, and God making room for him means making room for him in Paradise. → Read at 58:11

tafāwut

Al-Rāghib: fawt is a thing being too distant to attain; tafāwut is difference in qualities, as though the quality of one thing were lost to the other; "no incongruity" means nothing in creation deviates from wisdom. → Read at 67:3

tafsīr

According to al-Rāghib, fasr means conveying an idea and disclosing a meaning intelligibly, and tafsīr means the same with more emphasis: conveying a meaning very clearly. → Read at 25:33

tafwīḍ

Al-Rāghib: tafwīḍ means to return something to someone, so entrusting one's affair to God means devolving it to Him, returning whatever part of it is seen as one's own. It approaches tawakkul (making God one's trustee) and taslīm (utter submission); these are three stations of servanthood, tafwīḍ more refined than tawakkul and taslīm more refined than tafwīḍ. → Read at 40:44

taghābun

Al-Rāghib: ghabn is undervaluing one's companion in a transaction through deceit; the Day of taghābun is the Resurrection, when loss in people's dealings (, ) comes to light, or, per another lexicographer, when things appear contrary to their worldly expectations. → Read at 64:9

ṭāghūt

() Al-ṭāghūt means rebellion and transgression, on an intensive paradigm like al-malakūt; it is used for the agents and causes of rebellion such as false deities, idols, satans, jinn and wrong leaders, in short everyone who is followed without God's permission. → Read
() Like al-ṭughyān (exceeding proper limits; oppression), it is a maṣdar generally used as an active participle; it too is said to mean anything worshipped other than God. → Read
() Al-Rāghib: any transgressor or anything worshiped besides God, used as singular and plural. It is originally a verbal noun like ṭughyān, meaning to transgress rightful limits without justification. → Read
() Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī: al-ṭāghūt refers to anything that people invoke or worship besides God, used for singular and plural alike. Based on the context, it apparently means here the idols and every false deity besides God. → Read

tahajjud

Tahajjud is derived from hujūd, which originally means sleep; according to more than one exegete it means waking and getting up after sleep. Nāfilah is derived from nafl, meaning extra. → Read at 17:79

taḥrīm

"Forbidding" here is making something unlawful for oneself by swearing an oath not to do it; the Prophet swore not to do something God had allowed him. → Read at 66:1

ṭāʾir

() Ṭāʾir means what indicates good or bad fortune and reveals a good or bad outcome; every person has something linked to his ultimate fate that indicates whether it will be good or bad, and making it cling to a person means making his action inseparable from him. → Read
() Ṭāʾir comes from the same root as ṭayr (bird), because people used to take omens from birds; its use expanded from inauspicious omens taken from birds to inauspicious omens in general. → Read

tajassum al-aʿmāl

To recompense people for their deeds means to give them those same deeds, making this one of the verses indicating that a person's deeds will take on a physical reality in the Hereafter. → Read at 46:19

tajassus

To spy is to pry into people's private affairs; it is like taḥassus ("inquire") except that spying carries a negative connotation and inquiring a positive one. → Read at 49:12

taʾjīl

Taʾjīl means “setting a specific time (ajal) for something,” and is commonly used to imply delay, which is the sense more congruent with the verse: the events have been deferred for the Day of Judgment. → Read at 77:12

takabbur

Assuming greatness for oneself and expressing it to another, by word or deed implying that one is better than the other; since any advantage a being has is from God, no one is entitled to takabbur except God. → Read at 7:13

takāthur

Al-Mufradāt: lahw is “something that distracts a person from what is important,” and mukātharah and takāthur signify “competing in the acquisition of wealth and status.” → Read at 102:1

takbīr

Takbīr (magnification) is to ascribe grandeur to God in belief and action; as narrated from the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt, it means that God is greater than any description, including this very quality, which is the most sublime level of tawḥīd. → Read at 74:3

takfīr al-sayyiʾāt

To absolve misdeeds means to forgive them; the original meaning of kufr is to cover. He rejects the view that it means replacing previous disbelief with faith and disobedience with obedience. → Read at 29:7

taklīf

Derived from al-kulfah (discomfort, hardship), it means imposition of duty and responsibility, because the person undergoes hardship in discharging his duties. → Read at 4:84

takrīm

Takrīm (honor) means having a special care for something and giving it a particular grace and position not found in other things; it is absolute, while tafḍīl (preferment) is relative, giving someone more than others where everyone receives some endowment. → Read at 17:70

takwīr

Takwīr means “rolling and wrapping in a circular manner,” like a turban wound around the head; it is perhaps used metaphorically for the sun being wrapped by darkness. → Read at 81:1

taʿlīm al-kitāb

Teaching the Book is enunciating its verses and explaining what is obscure in them; teaching wisdom is imparting the real knowledge the Qur'an contains. → Read at 62:2

talwiyah

A verbal noun of the second form of l-w-y, whose first form (lawā, layyan) means to incline or turn something, such as the head or face, away. → Read at 63:5

tamannī

Tamannī means supposing something one likes, whether possible or impossible, such as a poor person's desire to be rich; umniyyah is the imagined form of such a desire, a source of pleasure for the person. → Read at 22:52

tamḥīṣ

Purifying something from extraneous pollutions. God gradually removes the ingredients of disbelief, hypocrisy and immorality from a believer until only pure belief remains, which is distinct from merely distinguishing a believer from an unbeliever. → Read at 3:141

tamkīn

() Tamkīn means facilitating, and tamakkun in the land means the power to dispose of it as one wishes through being made sovereign over it. → Read
() To establish literally means to settle something and make it firm; here it alludes to giving people power and the ability to act upon the world. → Read

ṭāmmah

Majmaʿ al-bayān: ṭāmmah means “high, dominant, overwhelming,” used for any overwhelming calamity that cannot be deflected; in this verse it means the resurrection, a calamity that surmounts every other disaster. → Read at 79:34

tanzīh

Tanzīh (glorification) is to refine and abstract one’s speech from anything not befitting the name and mention of God, a verbal glorification consonant with practical glorification and part of complete monotheism. → Read at 87:1

tanzīl

() Tanzīl and inzāl are synonymous, except that inzāl (form ifʿāl) is usually used for sudden acts and tanzīl (form tafʿīl) for gradual ones; nuzūl of physical objects is movement from high to low, and of non-physical things it is according to the object. → Read
() A verbal noun (literally a gradual sending down) used in the sense of a passive participle: something sent down gradually so that people may understand it, whereas in the guarded book only the purified could access it. → Read

taqarrub

Nearness as an acquired trait of servanthood: the servant draws near through righteous deeds and reaches a place enveloped by divine mercy, while God draws near by admitting him to a station of special grace and forgiveness. → Read at 56:11

taqdīm

Not venturing ahead of God and His Messenger means entering God's guardianship (wilāyah) and standing in servitude, bringing one's will into accord with God's at the level of legislation as it already accords with it at the level of creation. → Read at 49:1

taqiyyah

Al-ittiqāʾ is to seek protection because of fear (sometimes used for fear itself, by association), and taqiyyah probably has the same connotation. He says the verse clearly allows taqiyyah, as the traditions of the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt show. → Read at 3:28

taqwā

() The taqwā mentioned after belief in () means abstaining from forbidden things and guarding against the sins that bring divine wrath and the punishment of the Fire, such as associating partners with God and the major sins; so the evil deeds God promises to cover are the minor misdeeds (). → Read
() Abstaining from what God has forbidden; the Godwary (muttaqīn) of this verse are those in whom this quality has taken root, and they are assured of Paradise. → Read
() Taqiyy is derived from taqwā, from the root waqaya; taqwā means guarding against what God has forbidden and avoiding forbidden acts which lead to punishment by God. Birr means excellence in deeds (iḥsān). → Read
() Taqwā is to avoid God's wrath by keeping away from what He has forbidden; ascribing it to the hearts shows it is a spiritual reality pertaining to the soul, not outward movements and postures, which can occur as either obedience or disobedience. → Read
() True nobility and dignity, which leads a person to true happiness in the Hereafter, is none other than Godwariness; hence the most noble in God's sight are the most Godwary. → Read
() The first command to be wary of God is Godwariness in the initial performance of deeds (doing righteous acts, avoiding sins); the second is Godwariness about deeds already done, through self-accountability to amend them and keep them sincere. → Read
() The narrated definition of Godwariness as "avoiding what God has forbidden" means abstaining from the greater sins; the "evil" removed for the Godwary is the lesser sins (compare ). → Read
() Al-Rāghib: fujūr means “rending the veil of piety,” and taqwá is “placing oneself under protection from a threat”; contrasted with fujūr, taqwá means avoiding vice and restraining oneself from what is prohibited, interpreted in narrations as waraʿ. → Read

taqwīm

Taqwīm means “giving qiwām” to something, a basis or structure by which it stands firmly; the fairest stature refers to the human capacity to rise to the highest rank through faith and righteous deeds. → Read at 95:4

taqyīḍ

The original meaning of taqyīḍ (to assign) is to exchange one thing for another; so had they been faithful and Godwary, God would have supported them with companions who would guide them, but as they disbelieved He exchanged these for companions from among the devils. → Read at 41:25

ṭāriq

The root ṭarq originally means “a sharp, audible blow,” later used for traveling, especially at night when travelers must knock; ṭāriq is any incident at night, and here a star that rises at night. → Read at 86:1

tartīl

Tartīl is “to recite the Qur’an in a manner that its letters are uttered successively and clearly.” → Read at 73:4

taʿs

To fall flat on one's face and remain in that condition, as opposed to getting up after falling. → Read at 47:8

tasbīḥ

() Glorification (tasbīḥ) means to purify something by speech, that is, to state its purity; and since speech is anything that unveils an intended meaning, a thing whose very constitution conveys this is glorifying by its nature, even without sound or words. → Read
() To glorify is to declare God free of whatever is ascribed to Him, accompanied by praise: ascribing beautiful acts to Him and negating all deficiency. → Read
() Glorification is exalting God above any deficiency, need, or quality that does not accord with His utter perfection; here it is meant in its truest sense, an actual glorification by everything, even if we do not comprehend it, not merely a figurative attestation. → Read
() Declaring something transcendent and free of defects and shortcomings; the present tense yusabbiḥu indicates continuity. Al-malik is authority to govern a social system, and al-quddūs, an intensive of quds, means transcendence and purity. → Read
() Glorifying God here is absolving Him of partners, which the garden's owners failed to do by relying on themselves and material causes, not saying "God willing"; that was an assertion of shirk. → Read
() Tasbīḥ means freeing God from all descriptions that imply defect, imperfection or non-existence, such as death, weakness and ignorance, whereas takbīr frees Him from all qualities whatsoever, since every attribute is limited by conceptual boundaries. → Read
() Of the three commands in the verse, glorification (tasbīḥ) answers to remembering God's majesty, praise (taḥmīd) to remembering His beauty, and asking forgiveness to the Prophet's own weakness and dependence on his Lord, completing his gratitude. → Read

taskhīr

() Taskhīr means subjecting something so that it acts in favor of the subduer's objectives; unlike compulsion, coercion and constraint, in taskhīr the subdued follows its own nature and choice, as fire subdued to burn wood is not constrained. → Read
() To dispose means to compel an agent to act in accordance with one's wishes, as the writer disposes the pen or the master disposes the servant to act, of his own free will, as the master wishes. → Read

taswīl

To seduce is to make decorous what excites the low self and to put something evil in a pleasant form; turning one's back is a metaphor for forsaking something after taking it up. → Read at 47:25

taṣwīr

To give shape and form to something, its structure and mode of existence; "goodly forms" means the harmony and proportion of its parts for the purpose of its existence, not beauty of visage. → Read at 64:3

taṣwīyah

Making something stable and well-proportioned, each part in its proper place and condition; for the human body, the precise arrangement of its limbs and organs. → Read at 15:29

taṭayyur

Taṭayyur means tashaʾʾum (taking something as a bad omen); it was so called (lit. "ascribing to birds") because birds were frequently used to deduce evil omens, and likewise one's share of misfortune is called ṭāʾir. → Read at 27:47

taṭfīf

Taṭfīf means “giving someone short measure” in count or weight, which God has prohibited and called ifsād (causing corruption) on earth. → Read at 83:1

taṭhīr

Taṭhīr means to remove impurity and defilement from something in order to return it to its original nature; purifying the House, as a place of worship, means keeping it clear of polytheism and whatever defiles worship. → Read at 22:26

tawaffā

To take something in full; God uses it for taking the living soul as happens at death (), and also for putting one to sleep. → Read at 6:60

tawaffī

() To take something completely, which is why it is also used for death, when God takes man's soul from his body. But the Qur'an does not use it in the meaning of death; it conveys taking and preserving, showing that the soul does not perish at death. → Read
() To take something away means to grasp something in its entirety, such as taking one's due or taking repayment on a loan. → Read

tawakkul

From wikāla, entrusting a matter to another to act in one's stead. Trusting in God means recognizing that, although He permits actions to be attributed to their doers and causes, these lack intrinsic power and He alone is the independent director of affairs. → Read at 12:66

tawallā

Tawallā means to take and follow someone as a master and guardian. → Read at 22:4

tawāṣī bil-ḥaqq

Enjoining one another to the truth means advising each other to follow the truth and be steadfast on it, in belief and action; it is more comprehensive than enjoining good and forbidding evil. → Read at 103:3

tawbah

() Al-tawbah literally means to return, and is generally used for repentance, since the repenter returns to his Lord; ascribed to God, it means He returns the servant to His grace and mercy, accepting his plea and forgiving him; ascribed to the servant, it is his return to God in repentance. → Read
() To return: the servant's returning to God with remorse for his misdeeds and a firm intention to leave the way that was taking him away from servitude. Ascribed to God, it means His turning to the servant with mercy; a servant's single repentance is flanked by two turnings from God. → Read
() Used here in its lexical sense, "to return": the return from idolatry to monotheism through faith, shown by adopting prayer and zakāt and adhering to all the ordinances of the religion. → Read
() Used here for faith, because faith means turning away from idolatry back to God; this usage is frequent in the Qur'an (e.g. ). → Read
() Tawbah means to return; it can be from disobedience to obedience or from polytheism to monotheism, and the Qur'an uses it in both senses. → Read
() God’s tawbah toward His servants means directing His mercy toward them, here by reducing their obligation; a first divine tawbah enables them to repent and obey and lightens their duties, and after they repent a second divine tawbah remits their sins. → Read

tawbah naṣūḥ

Naṣḥ, per al-Rāghib, is seeking the better, wholesome deed or word, and also sincerity; a sincere repentance turns the doer away from the misdeed permanently, so that he never returns to it. → Read at 66:8

tawfiyah

To fulfill is to deliver one's due completely; Abraham delivered what was due from him in divine servanthood in the most complete way. → Read at 53:37

taʾwīl

() Derived from al-awl (to return): the taʾwīl of an ambiguous verse is its 'returning base' to which it is returned, and the taʾwīl of the Qur'an is the source from which it gets its realities. Words like 'interpretation' do not convey its true connotation; it is not the meaning of a word but a real fact found outside the imagination. → Read
() The realization of a vision in external reality: the reality that appears to the dreamer in a form suited to his perceptions, as the prostration of Joseph's parents and brothers appeared as the sun, the moon and eleven planets. → Read
() According to Qur'anic convention, taʾwīl is the reality which something contains, where it originates and what it is based on: the taʾwīl of a dream is its interpretation, of a ruling its reason, of an action its benefit and true purpose, and of an incident its true reason. → Read

tawkīl

Tawkīl is appointing another to manage one's affairs in one's place, placing one's will and act in accord with the agent's will; from one perspective it corresponds to obedience. → Read at 64:13

taysīr

To make easy: God has made the Qur'an easy for all people, of any class, education, or intelligence, to understand each at his own level. → Read at 54:17

ṭayyib

() That which is agreeable with one's nature; the good things of provision are foods, or more broadly anything serving the continuation of human life, and ṭīb is agreement and harmony with one's nature. → Read
() Being in a pure, original state, free from any element that could sully it, whether or not this induces aversion; ṭāhir is original purity free of anything causing revulsion. Ṭayyib is contrasted with khabīth. → Read

ṭayyibāt

"Good things" are those in harmony with the soul and agreeable to nature, from which a person derives pleasure. → Read at 46:20

tazakkī

() Tazakkī here means purifying oneself from the defilements of transgression, either by repentance and returning to God or by obedience and abstaining from sin. → Read
() Tazakkī here means self-purification through good deeds, which follows upon taking admonition, that is, heeding true beliefs. → Read
() Tazakkī means “self-purification,” applying to purifying oneself from worldly attachments, returning to God, spending in God’s way, and ablution for the prayer. → Read

tazwīj

"Wed" here means pairing them with the houris, not solemnizing a marriage, as shown by the verb taking its second object with bi, which the marriage sense does not need (). → Read at 52:20

thaqf

Al-Rāghib: perceiving and accomplishing something with skill, dexterity, and cleverness; it is also used for perception alone, even without accomplishment. → Read at 60:2

thawāb

Thawāb is the recompense for one's deeds. Al-Rāghib: the root meaning of thawb is the return of a thing to its original or desired state; thawāb is the recompense that comes back to a person for his deeds, used for both good and bad but mostly for good. → Read at 19:76

thiql

Weight (thiql) is primarily a physical property, used metaphorically for what cannot be handled easily; a speech is weighty either because its meanings are hard to comprehend or because what it instructs is hard to realize, and the Qur’an is weighty in both ways. → Read at 73:5

tijārah

Al-Rāghib: investing capital in pursuit of profit; faith and struggle are the merchandise, whose capital is the human soul. → Read at 61:10

ṭūbā

The feminine of aṭyab, literally "more pure" or "more virtuous", describing an implicit noun, "life" or "livelihood": a purer life, which comes only when the heart finds tranquility, attainable by those who believe and do righteous deeds. → Read at 13:29

ṭughyān

Ṭāghūn are those characterized by ṭughyān, which means "violating and exceeding the limits"; they have made hell a place of resort and recourse for themselves. → Read at 78:22

tuṭahhir, tuzakkī

Tuṭahhir (cleanse) is to remove dirt and pollutants so a thing becomes clean and ready to grow; tuzakkī (purify) is to make it grow and flourish by bringing out its goodness, as a gardener prunes a tree. The verse combines the two. → Read at 9:103

Glossary: T ​

Glossary: T