Discover the meaning of the term Nabat (نبات) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 2 min readThe body’s first perfection, natural and mechanical, as to what generates, grows, feeds.
A complete compound being the certain effect by its nourishing specific form, with structure’s keeping. Know no divergence that the plant is no animal; divergence over its life: some say living, life the attribute principle of nutrition and growth; some say not, life the attribute principle of sense and voluntary motion; some affirm both in it, leaning on signs; some exaggerated its perceptiveness, granting universals’ perception, the sense by reason, claiming the female palms’ inclining toward certain males over others observed, without that unattainable: the ancient sages followed it.
A composed body having growth, without sense.
A composed body having a specific form whose effect embraces its species: growth and feeding, with structure’s keeping, so Ibn Kamil established. Ar-Raghib said: naba and nabt: what issues from the earth of the growing, stemmed as the tree or not as the star; but custom specifies it for the stemless, the commons for what the animal eats; who regards realities regards it in every growing, plant or animal.
An embracing name of all the earth sprouts, tree or star.