Discover the meaning of the term Al-klma (كلمة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readIt is the term coined for a single meaning; among the people of truth: that by which each of the quiddities and entities is designated: the mental and the invisible by the conceptual word, the external by the existential word, and the abstracts by the separables.
Derived from al-kalm with a sukun on the lam, meaning wounding. Among the people of truth: that by which each of the quiddities and entities is designated. Among the grammarians: a term coined for a single meaning. Among the logicians: a synonym of the verb, that is, a word indicating a meaning in itself joined to one of the three times; as to whether every verb among the grammarians is a kalima among the logicians or not, that is a contested question; if you wish to look into it, see Laysa kull fi'l 'inda al-'arab kalima 'inda al-mantiqiyyin (not every verb of the Arabs is a word for the logicians). In the Law, the goodly word, namely la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah; its virtues exceed what can be counted, and some of them are mentioned in al-Qabr (the grave); look into it, for it benefits you in the persistence of faith. If it is said: if by the word ilah in the goodly word is meant the worshipped in absolute terms, then the judgment of negation does not hold; and if the truly worshipped is meant, the exclusion of the thing from itself would be required. I say: we choose the second, and we do not concede the stated risk, because the truly worshipped is broader in sense than Allah the Exalted, even if it is equal to Him in truth; and the generality of what is excluded suffices for the validity of the exception. And the word la is a negation of the genus, whose noun is ilah and whose predicate is omitted. If it is said: the omitted predicate is either existent or possible, and neither the first nor the second holds: the first because the structure of the discourse would then be there is no existent worshipped except Allah, and the negation of existence does not entail the negation of possibility, unlike the converse, so the possibility of those multiple individuals would remain, and it would not be pure monotheism, because the aim is to affirm the impossibility of a partner to the Creator, not to deny his existence while admitting his possibility. The second because the meaning in la ilaha would then be possible, and you know that possibility does not entail existence, so nothing would then be known except His possibility, not His existence. And the scholars have an answer to this objection.
It is used for the single word, for the sentence, and for much speech; thus the saying of the Exalted: (No indeed! It is but a word he utters).
A word coined for a single meaning.