Discover the meaning of the term Tafakkur (تفكر) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 2 min readThe heart’s moving through the senses of things, to grasp the sought.
The heart’s lamp whereby it sees its good and ill, its profit and loss; every heart without tafakkur is in darkness, floundering. Said: it is the bringing-forth of the heart’s knowledge of things. Said: tafakkur is the heart’s sifting by the arrivals of benefits; said: the lamp of consideration, the key of choice; said: the garden of realities’ trees, the pupil of fine lights; said: reality’s field, the Law’s pasture; said: the world’s annihilation and passing, the scale of the hereafter’s lasting and gaining; said: the wisdom-bird’s net. Said also: expressing the thing by easier, simpler than the original’s wording.
The heart’s moving through the senses of things, to grasp the sought.
The reflecting power’s ranging among the thoughts, by the reason’s gaze’s measure.
The seeking of reflection, the soul’s hand wherewith it gains knowledge as the body’s hand gains sensibles, mentioned by al-Hourali. Ibn Kamil said: the heart’s moving in things’ senses to grasp the sought. Ar-Raghib said: the investigating power’s running from known to unknown by the reason’s gaze’s measure; man’s alone, not the beast’s, said only of what can take form in the heart; hence he said: « reflect on Allah’s favors, and reflect not on Allah » (at-Tabarani, al-Awsat, from Ibn ’Oumar), sanctifying Him from form-description; « reflect they not on themselves? » (ar-Roum 8), « reflect they not on their companion? » (al-A’raf 184).