Discover the meaning of the term Ibn (ابن) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readA male being generated of another individual’s seed of its kind.
If between two sciences, the first being its description, its alif omitted in writing, else not. And he who would his pregnant wife bear a son, let him regard the pregnancy (f. 8).
Its root is bounou, of their word: plural abna’, diminutive bounayya; said: its root bounou with kasra of ba, as haml, by their word yabnou; this view holds little change, attesting lineage. A being generated of another’s seed of its kind; the child so named for being the father’s building, Allah being who built him and made cause of his creation. Its reality applies to the direct son, to none other but by extension. Direct: begotten, of back or belly. It applies metaphorically too to the milk-son; and to the male without the female, distinguishing from walad embracing both. Ibn’s plural among humans is banoun and abna’; of non-human, unreasoning, as the sandgrouse’s young and the milch cow’s, one says of all: bounat. Ibn to the father: every male born on a sound bed, or by a corrupt marriage contract, or intercourse with a legally regarded doubt, or possession by right of hand. To the mother: every male she bore of marriage or fornication, and whom she nursed becoming her son by milk. Ibn is said of all arising from a thing’s side, its raising, its visiting, much service.
The child so named for being the father’s building, Allah making him cause of his creation; of all arising from a thing’s side, its raising, visit, much service or charge’s performance, one says it is its ibn.
A male being generated of another of its kind’s seed; ar-Raghib said: of all arising from a thing’s side, its raising, visit, much service or charge, one says it is its ibn, as so-and-so son of Harb, ibn sabil (the wayfarer) and ibn sabil (son of the road).