الجَذْر

At the Root

Entering Arabic through its inmost structure — three letters, a world.
After Maurice Gloton, Approche du Coran par la grammaire et le lexique.

The whole of the Arabic language unfolds from a limited number of roots — generally three consonantal letters that carry a fundamental meaning. From this triple matrix, dozens of words are formed, each declining a nuance of the source-meaning: verbs, nouns of action, participles, nouns of place, intensives…

To know the root is to see what binds together words that seem far apart. Raḥma (mercy) and raḥim (the womb) share the root ر ح م — God carries the world as a womb carries the child. This module is a doorway into that concrete intelligence.

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Touch the letters to compose a root

or by English word:

No root matches.
The module will grow with the seasons — more roots will come.

Principal source This module draws on the reference work of Maurice Gloton (1928–2017), Approche du Coran par la grammaire et le lexique (Albouraq, 2002, 873 pages). Gloton — one of the great French translators of classical Sufism (Ibn ʿArabī, al-Rāzī, al-Junayd, al-Qāshānī…) — there offers a root-by-root analysis of the Quran, restoring for each word its semantic and spiritual reach. 64 roots at present — the module will grow gradually to cover the essential core of central Quranic vocabulary.