Discover the meaning of the term Al-tamaniy (تَّمَنِّي) in Islamic vocabulary.
Contents :
Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readFalsehood; a tafa''ala form from 'mana yamni' (he estimated), when he reckons; for the liar frames the speech in himself, then utters it.
It is the speech wished for by it or its utterance; the author of 'al-Kashshaf' said: tamanni is not among the acts
When the particle is a letter, like 'layta' (would that), it governs its complement in the accusative; but when it is a verb, like 'wadda' (to wish), it has not been heard of among the Arabs, nor mentioned by the grammarians.
In 'al-Mutawil': it is the seeking of a thing's attainment by way of love. The difference between presenting ('arid) and tamanni is twofold: the first, that presenting requires an addressee to whom one presents, whereas tamanni does not require him, for the lone man may say 'would that I had water to drink,' as one says 'would that I had water to drink'; the second, that presenting is only for the addressee's benefit, whereas tamanni does not require that, for one may wish what benefits only oneself. Tamanni is employed of the impossible and the possibles in which there is no coveting of occurrence, unlike taraji (hoping), for that is employed of the possibles in which there is no certainty of attainment. Know that the definition of tamanni by what was mentioned is a definition in the most general sense, since it includes the seeking of a thing by way of love together with expectation or coveting of its occurrence, whereas that is not tamanni; yet they conceded it in incomplete definitions, because what is intended is not the distinguishedness of the defined from all besides it. The difference between expectation (tawaqqu') and coveting (tama') is that expectation is awaiting a thing's occurrence or its nearness to occurrence, and coveting is the desiring of a thing with a view to its occurrence.
The seeking of a thing's attainment, whether possible or impossible.
The seeking of a thing's attainment, possible or impossible; thus mentioned Ibn Kamal (al-Ta'rifat, p. 69). Al-Raghib said (al-Mufradat, p. 475): 'estimating a thing in the soul and picturing it therein; this proceeds sometimes from guessing and surmise, sometimes from reflection built upon a basis; but since most of it is guessing, lying became more likely for it. So most tamanni is the picturing of what has no reality.'