Discover the meaning of the term Al-qanwn (قانون) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readA universal applying to all its particulars whose rules are known from it; as when the grammarians say: the subject is nominative (raf'), the direct object accusative (nasb), and the genitive complement oblique (jarr).
It is a Syriac word meaning the rule (mistara); it was then transferred to the universal proposition (qadiyya kulliyya) from which the rules of the particulars judged by it are derived; that proposition is called a foundation (asl) or principle (qa'ida), those rules branches (furu'), and their derivation from that foundation tafri' (subsumption). [The mistara also denotes the straightedge of the table and of writing; and what is famous among the later logicians, contrary to what the Second Teacher declared explicitly, is that the ancients called qawanin every instrument made to test what the senses might have misjudged, whether a body, a quality, or anything else, such as the plane, the compass, the straightedge and the scales; they were also called compendia of calculation (jawami' al-hisab); the astronomical tables qawanin; and the abridged books made as reminders of long works qawanin, when they are few in number and confine many things, so that by knowing and retaining them we come to know things of great number.]
A Greek or Syriac word: the writing-rule (mistarat al-kitaba). In technical usage it denotes, like the qa'ida, a universal proposition from which, in potentia proxima to the act, the states of the particulars of its subject are known; for example: every subject (fa'il) is nominative. If you wish to know the state of Zayd, for instance, in 'Zayd came to me', you must join the simple and actual minor premise, namely 'Zayd is a subject', to that proposition and say: Zayd is a subject, and every subject is nominative; you then obtain the knowledge that he is nominative. Some have drawn a distinction: the qanun is the universal statement applying to all its particulars whose rules are known from it, while the qa'ida is the universal proposition mentioned.
A Greek or Syriac word: the writing-rule. In technical usage it denotes, like the qa'ida, a universal proposition from which, in potentia proxima to the act, the states of the particulars of its subject are known, such as: every subject is nominative. If you wish to know the state of Zayd, for instance, in 'Zayd came to me', join the simple and actual minor premise, namely 'Zayd is a subject', to that proposition, and say: Zayd is a subject; every subject is nominative; you thereby obtain the knowledge that he is nominative. Some have distinguished: the qanun is the universal statement applying to all its particulars.
A universal statement applying to particulars whose rules are known from it.
A universal statement applying to all its particulars whose rules are known from it, like the grammarians' saying: the subject is nominative and the object accusative (al-Ta'rifat, p. 177).
A universal statement applying to its particulars whose rules are known from it, as in their saying: 'the subject is nominative'.