Discover the meaning of the term Al-ʿrwḍ (عروض) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readThe last part of the first hemistich of the verse.
With damma: 'arada, sale, unveiling, manifestation, cloud, and the glance; and one of the names of Mecca, whose honor and veneration God Most High increased. The science of 'arud, with fatha, is a science by whose rules the meter of poetry and its meters are known, and whose observance preserves man from excess and deficiency in measured speech. Ar-'arud, in the terminology of the masters of 'arud, is the last part of the hemistich. The founder of the science of 'arud is Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Basri, may God have mercy on him; it is related that he passed by the fullers' shop and heard, from the beating of the cloth, harmonious sounds; he said: by God, from this something must appear, and those sounds became for him the principles of extracting the science of 'arud. It is also related that it was revealed to him in blessed Mecca, and so he named it after her name, al-'arud; and ar-'arud is also the plural of al-'ard, as has passed.
Plural: 'urud, with sukun of the ra'. Abu Zayd said: it is what is other than gold coin; al-Asma'i said: any wealth other than specie; Abu Ubayd said: what is other than realty, animal, measured and weighed things. As for al-'ard, with fatha of the ra', its mention has already passed. Technically: the jurists defined it by definitions not departing from its linguistic sense; among them: al-'urd, with sukun of the ra', is what is other than the specie monies in wealth, whatever its kinds: plant, animal, realty and the rest of wealth; and with fatha: abundance of wealth and goods. It was named 'ard because it appears then vanishes and perishes; it is also said: because it appears to be sold and bought, the object being named with the masdar's name, as the known is named science.
A science by the universal rules induced from the poems of the Arabs on which they composed, that the sound may be distinguished from the corrupt.
A science by whose rules the meters of Arabic poetry are known.
Plural of 'ard. In language: movable goods, into which enter neither the measured nor the weighed, nor is it animal nor realty; it is originally other than the two specie kinds of wealth. In Jami' al-Rumuz: 'it is what is other than the two specie kinds, and what is eaten and worn, among movables'.