Fitna (word)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Fitna "temptation, trial; sedition, civil strife") is an Arabic word with extensive connotations of trial, affliction, or distress. A word with important historical implications, it is also widely used in modern Arabic.
One might distinguish between the meanings of fitna as used in Classical Arabic and the meanings of fitna as used in Modern Standard Arabic and various colloquial dialects. Due to the conceptual importance of fitna in the Qur'an, its use in that work may need to be considered separately from, though in addition to, the word's general lexical meaning in Classical Arabic.
Aside from its use in the Qur'an, fitna is used as term for the four heavy civil wars within the Islamic Caliphate from the 7th to the 9th century AD.
Root and forms
Arabic, in common with other Semitic languages like Hebrew, employs a system of root letters combined with vowel patterns to constitute its whole range of vocabulary. As such, identification of the root letters of any word might bring a better understanding the word's full semantic range.
Fitna has the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (Template:Lang-ar). In addition to the feminine noun fitna, fitan, this root forms, in particular, a Form I active verb fatana, yaftinu (Template:Lang-ar), a Form I passive verb futina, yuftanu (Template:Lang-ar), a Form I maṣdar futūn (Template:Lang-ar), a Form I active participle fātin (Template:Lang-ar), a Form I passive participle maftūn (Template:Lang-ar), and so on.
See also