Discover the meaning of the term Al-qbḍ (قبض) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 2 min readThe opposite of expansion (bast). With the masters of the way (suluk) they are two states after the servant's ascent out of fear and hope; the qabd, for the knower, is like fear for the one seeking aman. The difference between them: fear and hope attach to a future event, dreaded or desired; the qabd, in prosody, is the deletion of the fifth unvoweled letter, like the ya of mafa'ilun, leaving mafa'ilun, and what contains that letter is called maqbud. Qabd is also one of the nine tastes: the taste seized by the surface and underside of the tongue, unlike the afusa, as mentioned.
Ownership: one says "the thing passed into his hand (qabdatihi)", that is, into his ownership; taking and laying on of the hand, as in the scholars' stipulation of qabd in the session for exchange (sarf), and in a number of sales. Qabd of a debt: collecting it; it applies to debts and to corporeal goods. A fistful of a thing: what one grasps, the fill of a palm; one says: "he gave him a fistful of dates or of suwiq", that is, a palmful (kaff) of it. The Quran relates of the Samiri: "So I seized a handful from the messenger's trace".
Placing the buyer in a position to dispose of the goods according to their state.
A meaning giving perception of a constricted, dreaded state occurring in the present moment.
With the dotted letters (q-b-d): the completion of taking; its origin is seizing with the hand.