Discover the meaning of the term Numuw (نمو) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readIt is the body’s volume’s growing, by what joins and insinuates in all dimensions, by natural proportion, unlike obesity and tumor: obesity not in all dimensions, length not growing thereby; the tumor not in natural proportion.
The original body-parts’ volume’s growing, by what joins and insinuates in all dimensions and extremities, by natural proportion, that is, by the fitness the body’s nature demands, unlike obesity, an accretion of added parts, and the tumor, an accretion without natural proportion. Original parts in some animals are what is generated of sperm: bone, nerve, ligament; added ones what is generated of blood: flesh, fat; obesity and blood generated of nourishment. We restricted by « some » for Adam is not generated of it, nor Hawwa’, nor the partridge of birds, and like. The embracing expression of original parts: what is generated of sperm or its like, as clay for Adam, seed for some plants; embracing expression of added parts: what is generated besides sperm and its like. I found in some commentaries of al-Hidaya in wisdom, explaining natural proportion: positing a body of one cubit length, half-cubit width, quarter-cubit depth, that accretion must be per natural proportion: half what grows in length grows in width, its quarter in depth; growth is that’s expression.
A body’s accretion by another body’s joining insinuating in its parts, in the dimensions, by natural proportion.
The body’s volume’s accretion by what joins and insinuates in all dimensions, by natural proportion, unlike obesity and tumor: obesity not in all dimensions, length not growing; the tumor not in natural proportion.
The body’s volume’s accretion by what joins and insinuates in all dimensions, by natural proportion, unlike obesity and tumor: obesity not in all the dimensions; the tumor not in natural proportion.