Discover the meaning of the term Al-ḍrb (ضرب) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readFor number: multiplying one of the two numbers by the other.
(In Persian: zadan and rafatan va b zadan, and kneading and mixing, and mingling). In the reckoning masters' usage: doubling one of the two numbers by the number of the units of the other. In another formulation: producing a third number such that the ratio of one of the two multiplicands to the other is as the ratio of one to that other multiplicand, and conversely; that is, producing a third number whose ratio to one of the multiplicands is as the other multiplicand's ratio to one; and this is plain in al-Sahah. As for fractions: the ratio of the sixth to the half of the sixth, arising from multiplying the half by the sixth, is as the ratio of one to the half, for the one is for instance the half and the sixth the half of the sixth; and the ratio of the half to the half of the sixth is as the ratio of one to the sixth, for the half is six times the half of the sixth, and the one likewise six times the sixth.
A thing, with darban and darbana: to move. The vein: to pulse. The man on the earth: to travel afar; and in the Quran: 'And when you travel in the earth, no blame on you to shorten the prayer if you fear that those who disbelieve may trouble you: the disbelievers are to you a manifest enemy' (An-Nisa, 101), that is, travel through the lands. A thing, with darban: to hit and strike it. The dirham and the like: to mint and stamp it. A thing upon someone: to bind him to it; and in the Noble Book: 'And abasement and wretchedness were struck upon them, and they incurred wrath from God; that because they disbelieved in God's signs and slew the prophets without right; that for their disobedience and transgression' (Al-Baqara, 61), that is, they were bound to it; so they remain abased; whoever finds them abases them and humiliates them, and the lowly ones were struck upon them, and they remain withal in themselves abject and submissive. Upon so-and-so's hand: to seize and arrest; one says: 'I struck upon his hands': I restrained him. From the matter: to cease and turn away. For him a term or appointment: to fix and specify it. In his wealth or other, a share or portion: to make it his and assign it. To describe; and in the Mighty Quran: 'Do you not see how God strikes a similitude: a good word, like a good tree, its root firm and its branch in the heaven; it gives its produce every season by leave of its Lord; and God strikes similitudes for men, that they may remember' (Ibrahim, 24-25). The male, with diraban: to mate. Idtaraba: to move without order, its parts striking one another. The matter: to become confused. The people: to clash one with another.
Its synonym.
Striking a thing upon a thing; the commentators, because of the variety of striking, distinguished among its senses, as striking a thing with the hand, with the staff, with the sword; striking the earth with rain; striking coins, in reference to striking with the hammer; it was also called minting (at-taba'), in reference to the die's effect upon it.
Among the reckoners: doubling one of the two numbers by the other.