with a fathah on its first letter—for the act itself. There is no doubt that a physical body is stronger than an accident, so they assigned the strong vowel to the stronger meaning and the weak vowel to the weaker meaning. The same applies to nihb and nahb: with a kasrah, it denotes what is plundered; with a fathah, the act of plundering. Likewise, mil’ denotes what fills something, whereas mal’ is the verbal noun denoting the act of filling. Similarly, himl, with a kasrah, denotes a substantial load that weighs upon someone carrying it on his back, head, or another part of his body. Haml, with a fathah, denotes something light that does not weigh its bearer down, such as an animal’s pregnancy. The fruit borne by a tree more closely resembles this, so they likewise gave it a fathah.

Consider this also in hibb and hubb. They used the form beginning with a kasrah for the beloved, and the form beginning with a dammah for the verbal noun, indicating how lightly the beloved rests upon their hearts, how gently the beloved touches their souls, and how sweet the beloved is to them. By contrast, the burden of love is heavy and unrelenting, clinging to a person as a creditor clings to his debtor. Hence it is called gharām (consuming passion). Thus they frequently describe bearing it as arduous and difficult, declaring that even the greatest and strongest created things—rock, iron, and the like—would melt beneath its burden and be unable to sustain it. Such expressions abound in the poetry and prose of earlier and later writers. It was therefore most fitting here to assign the strong vowel to the verbal noun and the lighter vowel to the beloved.

Another example is qabd, with its middle consonant unvowelled, denoting the act of taking possession, and qabad, with that consonant vowelled, denoting what is taken into possession. A vowel is stronger than its absence, and the thing taken into possession is stronger than the action denoted by the verbal noun.

Likewise, sabq, with its middle consonant unvowelled, denotes the act of outstripping, whereas sabaq, with a fathah, denotes the money received under this contract.

Consider also dāra, dawarān (“to turn; turning”); fārat al-qidr, fawarān (“the pot seethed; seething”); and ghalat, ghalayān (“it boiled; boiling”). Notice how they placed successive vowels in these verbal nouns to mirror the successive movements of what they denote. Thus the wording corresponds to the meaning.

And consider hajar (“stone”) and hawā’ (“air”): how they assigned to the heavy, hard meaning