Discover the meaning of the term Al-ʿla (علة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readIn language: a meaning that settles in a receptacle and changes its state without choice; hence disease is called 'illa, for by its settling the person's state changes from strength to weakness. In law: that with which the ruling becomes obligatory; and the 'illa in prosody: alteration in the eight parts when it occurs in the 'arud and the darb.
It is that on which the thing's existence depends, being external to it and affecting it.
The formal cause: what brings the thing into existence in act; the material cause: what brings the thing into existence in potentiality; the efficient cause: that whereby the thing exists; the final cause: that for the sake of which the thing exists.
With fatha: al-darra; from it 'bani al-'ilat' (cousins), as passed. With kasra: in language, the accident which, upon settling in its subject, changes its state, that is, the state of the subject; and in the language of seeking, the 'illa is disease
In language: a meaning that settles in a receptacle and changes its state; hence disease is called 'illa, for by its settling the state changes from strength to weakness; one says 'i'tala' when he falls ill. It is also applied to the cause: one says: 'the cause of Muhammad's honoring Ibrahim is his knowledge and excellence,' and one says: 'Muhammad did not do the ugly thing because of its ugliness.' Al-'illa: the engrossing disease. In the usulists' terminology, al-Ghazali defined it saying: 'It is that to which the Lawgiver attached the ruling, made the ruling dependent upon it, and appointed it its sign'; as His word, the Most High: 'and the thief, male and female: cut off their hands.'
It is the defined for the ruling: what the thing's existence needs.
In language: a meaning that settles in a receptacle and changes its state; hence disease was named 'illa, for by its settling the state changes from strength to weakness.
It is that on which the thing's existence depends, being external to it and affecting it; or it denotes that to which the ruling's obligatoriness is originally attached.