# رَسَلَ rasala



## James Bates

Golius says in his Lexicon Arabico-Latinum that the verb "rasala" (رَسَلَ) signifies "Nuncium misit" ("He sent a messenger/message").
ibn Maaroof's Arabic-Persian dictionary, Kanz-ul-Lughah, on the other hand, says the infinitive رَسُوْل signifies پیغام بردن ("to bear a message").
Taj-ul-'Aroos, however, doesn't list either of these meanings. Is it possible Golius and ibn Maaroof had access to resources that az-Zabeedi did not?


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## Kinan

I didn't come across this particular verb before but I guess it's a form of the verb راسل .
راسل means to send and receive messages to and from someone, while رسل could be sending only one message. Not sure.


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## إسكندراني

This root is so common that any linguist would have heard of it.


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## James Bates

The root is extremely common, but it seems the ثلاثي مجرد form is not.


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## إسكندراني

Can I ask why you gave a translation of رسول to persian if you're interested in the 3-letter root? I feel like I'm missing something.
As for رسل I've never seen it before. I don't know how common it was classically, but I don't think it's in the Qur'aan, which uses أرسل.


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## James Bates

Edward William Lane says in his lexicon that Kanz-ul-Lughah says "rasool" is an infinitive (مصدر).


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## إسكندراني

Then we must be misunderstanding what a مصدر is. I thought a مصدر is the three letter root ر س ل. Which came first, which noun or which verb, is usually hypothetical. In any case, what the مصدر is is irrelevant, since derived words can take on different meanings. Focus on رسل if that's what you're looking for and ignore all else.


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## WadiH

Do dialects in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. have a form رَسَلْ in place of أرسل?


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## إسكندراني

I think the فلّاحين use رسل.


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## WadiH

إسكندراني said:


> I think the فلّاحين use رسل.



So in Alexandria, you say أرسلت لك رسالة or أفطرت الصبح?


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## إسكندراني

Wadi Hanifa said:


> So in Alexandria, you say أرسلت لك رسالة or أفطرت الصبح?


No we don't use رسل, we use بعَت. Maybe some use أرسل as an influence from فصحى but that would be very recent.
And all Egyptians use فطر.


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## WadiH

Thanks اسكندراني.


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## rayloom

In Hijazi Arabic, both rasal and arsal are used.
rasal for objects, and arsal for people...mostly.


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## James Bates

إسكندراني said:


> Then we must be misunderstanding what a مصدر is. I thought a مصدر is the three letter root ر س ل. Which came first, which noun or which verb, is usually hypothetical. In any case, what the مصدر is is irrelevant, since derived words can take on different meanings. Focus on رسل if that's what you're looking for and ignore all else.



I AM ignoring everything else. I am not concerned with أرسل, whose infinitive is إرسال, or استرسل, whose infinitive is استرسال, or راسل, whose infinitive is مراسلة. I am concerned only with رَسَلَ, whose infinitive, if I am not mistaken, is رَسُول.


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## WadiH

rayloom said:


> In Hijazi Arabic, both rasal and arsal are used.
> rasal for objects, and arsal for people...mostly.



I mostly hear _rasal_​.  Perhaps it's a generational thing.


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## إسكندراني

James Bates said:


> I AM ignoring everything else. I am not concerned with أرسل, whose infinitive is إرسال, or استرسل, whose infinitive is استرسال, or راسل, whose infinitive is مراسلة. I am concerned only with رَسَلَ, whose infinitive, if I am not mistaken, is رَسُول.


i. There is no such thing as an infinitive in Arabic. I think you mean the verbal noun اسم الفعل
ii. I don't think اسم الفعل for رسل is رسول - I'm not sure it has an اسم فعل. This might be the cause of your puzzlement. Does anyone know if there is one?


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## James Bates

إسكندراني said:


> i. There is no such thing as an infinitive in Arabic. I think you mean the verbal noun اسم الفعل



Then what do you call جلوس in أريد جلوسك ('I want you to sit')?


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## إسكندراني

James Bates said:


> Then what do you call جلوس in أريد جلوسك ('I want you to sit')?


The اسم فعل doesn't always follow the same pattern. أكول doesn't exist.
Also جلس is a verb you do without a مفعول به. In contrast, رسل is  something you do to a مفعول به - even if it's hidden. Could there be some kind of older meaning to the verb I'm not aware of? Do you have any examples for the usage of this verb? We've established the only modern usage is in dialects as a synonym for أرسل.


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## James Bates

I just checked a book of grammar. It says the infinitives are called أسماء الفعل in Arabic. It also says they're called مصادر. Anyway, let's stick to your preferred terminology. If my dictionary is to be trusted, the اسم الفعل for rasala is رَسول, just as قَبول is for qabila. The الحروف الأصلية or root letters for رسول are, of course, raa', seen, and laam. The meaning of a verb cannot be guessed simply from the root letters, as can be seen from the following list of verbs, all of which have the same root letters but quite different meanings:

1. قَامَ qaama
2. قَوَّمَ qawwama
3. قَاوَمَ qaawama
4. أَقام 'aqaama
5. استقام istaqaama

The additional letters or الحروف الزائدة in 2-5 change the meaning from the basic meaning of "to stand" in 1.

I am simply interested in determining the meaning of رَسول when used as an اسم الفعل of رَسَلَ rasala, without any additional letters.


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## AndyRoo

I don't know if the entry in Lanes' Lexicon helps:
http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume3/00000247.pdf

Lane thinks Golius misinterpreted Kanz al-Lugha and that رسول means "bringing a message". Lane then _deduces_ the verb رسل to mean "he brought a message".


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## James Bates

Alright, but where did the author of Kanz al-Lughah, ibn Maaroof, get the meaning "to bear a message" from?


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## rayloom

James Bates said:


> Alright, but where did the author of Kanz al-Lughah, ibn Maaroof, get the meaning "to bear a message" from?


Unfortunately I don't know much about كنز اللغة. It could descriptive of the Arabic of the time of Ibn Ma'ruuf. Rasala might have been used at the time with that meaning. Rasuul could've been borrowed into Persian to mean "to bear a message" (an infinitive).
You can see it's all speculative.

Regarding rasuul (and the form fa3uul in general), it's unlikey in Arabic that it be an infinitve.
The form f*a*3uul is a participle form. Which is different from the form f*u*3uul, a common infinitive form for form I verbs (G-stem verbs).
In one of your replies, you have mentioned qabuul (as an infinitive). It's true that it's an infinitive (maSdar), but even grammarians and classical dictionaries have discribed it as شاذ. And you also have qubuul as a maSdar of قبل. It's certainly rare to find infinitive of the form fa3uul.
You mentioned جلس, its maSdar is j*u*luus.
You also mentioned فطر, which has f*u*Tuur (among others). While f*a*Tuur is what you have for breakfast, not an infinitive.
Also take for example ركب, you have r*u*kuub as a maSdar (infinitive) and r*a*kuub (a mount).


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## James Bates

جزاك الله خيرًا


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## Haydari

So what is the actual meaning of the verb رَسَلَ and is رِسَالَة its masdar? Is the verb transitive or intransitive?


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## Mazhara

Root:  ر س ل

Words from this Root in the Grand Qur'aan:

a) Total occurrences: 513 

b) No of constructions:  120

It occurs in 419 Ayahs in 69 Chapters. This is one of the eleven Roots that have more than 500 occurrences in the concordance of Qur'aan.

Ibn Faris [died 1005] stated:

(مقاييس اللغة)
الراء والسين واللام أصلٌ واحدٌ مطّردٌ مُنْقاس، يدلُّ على الانبعاث والامتداد. فالرَّسْل:السَّير السَّهل

That it leads to the perception of renaissance, reawakening, emergence, resurgence, dispatching, sending, and reaching. Thereby it denotes to move softly, soft pace.

Semantic components: Breaking down-basic elements into which the meaning of a word can be decomposed into components; semantically the term component refers to irreducible feature in terms of which the sense of lexical items can be analyzed.

It is evident from the basic perception that this Root in Form-IV signifies tri-relationship; the sender, the sent one-messenger, and the recipient to whom messenger is sent, and the message.

Lane's Lexicon

1 *  رَسِلَ*  , aor. *  رَسَلَ* , inf. n.  رَسَلٌ and  رَسَالَ, _He_ (a camel) _was,_ or _became, easy in pace._
This is not used in the Grand Qur'aan.


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