Abstract
In the Arabic grammatical tradition several categories comprising exactly five members can be found, e.g., the types of “meaningful things”, of definite nouns, of tanwīn, of definite article, of tawābiʿ etc. Given the importance of the number ‘five’ in Islam, it is natural to ask whether these categorizations are affected by the symbolical meaning of that number. This article examines some of these categorizations in order to check the extent to which they are linguistically or theoretically justified, and whether they use ‘five’ as a typological number. In order to answer these questions, the fivefold divisions are tested for consistency and the surrounding discourse is investigated.
Highlights
Organizing material into short lists may be a powerful mnemonic and pedagogical tool, but in light of the frequent use of the specific number ‘five’ in Arabic grammatical literature, we ask whether this particular number has a special meaning and what that meaning can be.Various cultures ascribe symbolic and even magical significance to numbers
This article examines some of these categorizations in order to check the extent to which they are linguistically or theoretically justified, and whether they use ‘five’ as a typological number
Al-Zajjājī in al-ʾĪḍāḥ speaks of three functions of tanwīn:[50] (1) It may mark the distinction between mutamakkin[51] and light constituents, on the one hand, and heavy constituents that are not fully declinable, on the other hand;[52] (2) It may serve as compensation (ʿiwaḍ) for an omitted part of the word—for example, the form jawārin ‘female slaves’ is derived from a supposed original form *jawāriyu in rafor *jawāriyi in jarr; the sequences -iyu and -iyi are considered “heavy”, and yābecomes quiescent; the pattern of the word becomes deficient, and the word is joined by a compensating tanwīn, becoming *jawāriyn, and the yāis omitted, because it is a quiescent letter followed by a vowelless nūn
Summary
Organizing material into short lists may be a powerful mnemonic and pedagogical tool, but in light of the frequent use of the specific number ‘five’ in Arabic grammatical literature, we ask whether this particular number has a special meaning and what that meaning can be. Various cultures ascribe symbolic and even magical significance to numbers. Numerical symbolism in monotheistic religions is probably related to the Pythagorean tradition, which holds that the cosmic order can be expressed by numbers. This tradition views odd numbers in general as auspicious (and even numbers as boding ill). In cultures influenced by this tradition, ritual acts and prayers are repeated an odd number of times.[1] Among various meaningful numbers, the number five is related to the pentagonal symmetry, to the five senses, etc. The number five is related to the pentagonal symmetry, to the five senses, etc. (unlike three and seven, five is not considered mysterious).[2]
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