Discover the meaning of the term Al-khyal- (خيال) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readA faculty that retains what the common sense grasps of the forms of sensibles after the matter's absence, so that the common sense beholds them whenever it turns to them; it is thus the storehouse of the common sense; its seat is the rear of the brain's first ventricle.
Opinion and surmise; a black effigy set upon a pole, by which beasts and birds are frightened, taking it for a man.
A faculty set at the rear of the brain's first ventricle, which retains all the forms of sensibles and represents them after their absence, so that the common sense beholds them when it turns to them; it is the storehouse of the common sense. If it alone was established as its storehouse, though the perceptions of all the external senses are preserved in it, it is because the sensibles of the external senses reach it only after arriving at the common sense and being handed over by it. Moreover, the external senses do not grasp them from their being stored there: their grasp requires a fresh sensation from outside, unlike the common sense.
What retains the form of sensibles after their absence.
Its yielding to that apprehension, in view of what falls to the side of sensation.
Originally, the abstracted faculty, like the form beheld in dream, in the mirror, and in the heart; then used for the form of anything beheld, and for any subtle person playing the phantom's role. Takhyil: representing in the soul the form of a thing's phantom; takayyul: beholding it. Khayal: whatever one sees like the shadow. Man's khayal in water and the mirror is the image of his form. (Al-Ta'rifat, p. 107): khayal is a faculty retaining what the common sense grasps of the forms of sensibles after the matter's absence, so that the common sense beholds them whenever it turns to them; it is the storehouse of the common sense, and its seat is the brain's first ventricle.