What does Al-qdra mean?

Islam > Glossary > Al-qdra

Discover the meaning of the term Al-qdra (قدرة) in Islamic vocabulary.

Definition Al-qdra

Al-qdra according to Kitab at-Ta'rifat (Al-Jurjani)

It is the attribute by which the Living is enabled to act and refrain at will.

Al-qdra according to Kitab at-Ta'rifat (Al-Jurjani)

An attribute acting upon the will's power.

Al-qdra according to Dustur al-'Ulama (Al-Ahmadnagari)

It is the attribute with which the Living is able to act and refrain at will, that is, the Living is such that the act may proceed from Him or not proceed, with intent. The best of the later ones, the Shaykh 'Abd al-Hakim, said: qudra has two senses. The first: the validity of act and abstention: it is possible of God that He produce and that He abstain, neither being necessary by Essence such that detachment from it is impossible: this is the theologians' view. The second: if He wills He acts, and if He wills not He acts not: this sense is agreed between us and the philosophers, except that the philosophers hold the will of the act, which is effusion and bounty, necessary by Essence, like knowledge and the other attributes of perfection, claiming that were He to abstain from it, that would be an imperfection, making detachment impossible. Accordingly the antecedent of the first conditional is necessarily true and the antecedent of the second necessarily false, while both conditionals are true of Him: a conditional's truth does not entail the truth of both its parts nor contradict their falsity. This sense does not contradict affirmation: the perpetuity of the act and the impossibility of abstention through another do not contradict choice with respect to the chooser's essence, as the rational being, so long as he is rational, shuts his eyes whenever a needle draws near his eyes, intending to blink, without failing, while acting by his choice; and the impossibility of refraining from blinking, because he knows the harm of refraining, does not contradict choice.

Al-qdra according to Mu'jam al-Mustalahat al-Fiqhiyya

In language: power over the thing and mastery of it; the opposite of impotence.

Al-qdra according to At-Tawqif (Al-Munawi)

Bringing forth the thing without apparent cause; mentioned by al-Harali. Ibn Kamal said (al-Ta'rifat, p. 180): the attribute by which the Living is enabled to act and to refrain at will.

Al-qdra according to At-Ta'rifat al-Fiqhiyya (Al-Barkati)

It is power over the thing and mastery of it. Al-Sayyid said: it is the attribute by which the Living is enabled to act and to refrain at will.