qalb
Arabic · قلب · qalb
qalb (قلب)
Qalb is the heart as a turning thing: the organ that can face, and can be flipped.
- q-l-b
- to turn, to invert, the heart
Morphology
Arabic قلب, heart, from a root of turning and inversion. The heart turns. In some Islamic psychologies it is the seat of knowing and of faith, not only of feeling.
Semantic range
Physical heart, the turning inner organ of knowing, spiritual heart.
History of the word
Qur’anic qalb can be sealed, opened, rusted, polished. Sufi maps place the qalb among lataʾif (subtle centers). English “heart” is the usual gloss and a reduction.
A key source
Qur’an
e.g. 22:46, hearts with which to understand.
Associated traditions
Parallels, not equivalents. Different attempts to notice something about knowing.
Hebrew
lev
Heart as the seat of thought as well as feeling.
Chinese
xīn 心
Heart-mind; another refusal of the split.
A distant linguistic echo
citta
Pali · Heart-mind pressure from another tradition; not a match.
How the word shifts
English locates thought in the head and feeling in the heart. Qalb does not always accept the split.
heart
The turning in the root; the cognitive office the heart holds.
A story where the word matters
Nearby words
Neighbors, not translations of one concept.
From this word
If the heart understands, what has the head been claiming that it need not?
One question remains
What does this word let us notice that English “consciousness” does not?
It lets us notice knowing as something a heart can do, including by turning.