Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ While ¹ʔamr ‘command, order’ belongs together with ↗ʔamara ‘to command, order, instruct’, and the Qur’ānic ³ʔamr ‘revelation’ probably is a borrowing from Syr, semantically close to the complex of ‘showing, demonstrating, indicating’ treated s.v. ↗ʔamāraẗ, ²ʔamr in the sense of ‘matter, affair, issue, case, etc.’ seems to reflect one of the primary values attached to √ʔMR in Sem: visibility. The original meaning may have been *‘s.th. visible (from afar), observable, attracting one’s attention’. – The idea of *‘visibility’ may ultimately stem from a Nostr *‘morning, daylight’ (> AfrAs *ʔMR ‘id.’) × *‘to burn (intr.), shine, be bright; dawn’ (though Dolgopolsky2012 rejected this possibility for phonological reasons).
▪ If ²ʔamr, interpreted as *‘visible, obvious, evident fact’, belongs to the complex of *‘visibility’, then its closest relatives within √ʔMR are ↗ʔamāraẗ ‘sign, token, mark’ and perh. ^†tāmūr(aẗ) ‘(little) tower’ (though the latter may derive from √TMR ‘date palm, dates’). Instead of a primary *‘visibility’, Barth1894 had assumed as sufficiently proven a basic *‘altitude, to be high’ to be the earliest sense of Sem √ʔMR, in which case ²ʔamr ‘matter, fact, etc.’ would originally by *‘s.th. high’, hence ‘noticeable, catching one’s attention, fact’. But neither ‘date palm, dates’ nor *‘altitude, to be high’ are needed to sketch a plausible theory of semantic development in Ar and Sem, *‘visibility’ being sufficiently convincing. – Other close relatives may be ^†ʔamir ‘multiplied, much, abundant’ (lit., *‘visible and calling for one’s attention due to its sheer quantity’), and ^†ʔimr ‘severe, distressful, grievous, afflictive (due to the fact that s.th. is obviously painful, hurting, etc.)’.
▪ …

hist

▪ eC7 Q 16:1, 17:85, 32:5, 40:15, 42:52, 65:12, 97:4.
▪ eC7 I ¹ʔamr ↗ʔamara. – II ²ʔamr (pl. ʔumūr) 1 (affair, matter) Q 8:43 ʔiḏ yurī‑ka‑humu ’llāhu fī manāmika qalīlan wa‑law ʔarā‑ka‑hum kaṯīran la‑fašiltum wa‑la‑tanāzaʕtum fī ’l‑ʔamri ‘Remember when God made you see them in your sleep as few – had He shown them to you as many, you would certainly have lost heart and disputed over the affair’; *Q 12:102 ʔaǧmaʕū ʔamrahum ‘they settled upon their plans’; *Q 9:50 qad ʔaḫaḏnā ʔamranā ‘we have taken our precautions beforehand’; *Q 21:93 taqaṭṭaʕū ʔamrahum baynahum ‘they fell into disunity, caused a schism amongst themselves [lit., they fragmented their affairs between them]’; *Q 3:186 ʕazmi ’l‑ʔumūri ‘matters of great importance, serious undertakings, a task requiring great capability’; 2 (situation, condition) Q 18:21 ʔiḏ yatanāzaʕūna baynahum ʔamrahum ‘when they were discussing their situation among themselves’; 3 (what exists) Q 11:123 wa‑li‑llāhi ġaybu ’l‑samāwāti wa’l‑ʔarḍi wa‑ʔilayhi yurǧaʕu ’l‑ʔamru kulluhū ‘to God belongs all that is hidden in the heavens and earth, and to Him all that exists shall return’.
▪ …

cogn

▪ ¹ʔamr ↗ʔamara.
▪ Zammit2002: Akk amāru ‘to see’, Ug ʔamr ‘saying, command; to be visible, to see’, Phoen ʔmr ‘to say’, Hbr ʔāmar ‘to utter, say’, lHbr maʔamär ‘word, command’, BiblAram ʔamar ‘to say, tell; command’, Syr ʔemar ‘to say, speak’, ʔamīrā ‘praefectus’, SAr ʔmr ‘to proclaim; command (of a god), oracle’, Gz ʔammara ‘monstrare, ostendere; notum facere; demonstrare’, Ar ʔmr ‘to command, order, enjoin’.
▪ DRS 1 (1994) #ʔMR‑ 1 Ar ʔamara ‘ordonner’; SAr ʔmr ‘ordonner, manifester’; Soq ʕemor, Śḥr ʕoñr, Mhr amor ‘dire’; EpigrAram ʔmr, JP ʔāmar, Syr ʔemar, Mand amar ‘dire, parler, ordonner’; Ya ʔmrh ‘ordre(?)’; Phoen Pun Moab EpigrHbr ʔmr, Hbr ʔāmar ‘dire’; Ug ʔamr ‘souhait, parole(?)’. – Akk amāru ‘voir, regarder’; Ug ʔamr ‘être visible, voir’; Ar taʔammala ‘examiner’; Gz ʔammara ‘montrer, indiquer’; təʔmərt ‘signe’; ʔəm(m)ur ‘clair, bien connu’; Tña ʔamära ‘savoir’; Te ʔammärä ‘être clair’; ʔamir ‘connaissance’; Amh ʔamro ‘raison, intelligence’; təmərt ‘signe, marque, science’. – Hbr ʔāmir ‘sommet d’arbre ou montagne’; tīmārā ‘colonne pilier’, Ar ʔamāraẗ ‘signe, indice, repère’, tāmūr(aẗ) ‘tour, tourelles’; ?Amh ʔamärä ‘être beau, plaisant, aimable’.
▪ …▪ …

disc

▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ Jeffery 1938: »In the two senses (i) ‘command’ or ‘decree’, (ii) ‘matter’, ‘affair’, it is a genuine Ar word, and commonly used in the Qurʔān. – In its use in connection with the Qurʔānic doctrine of revelation, however, it would seem to represent the Aram מימרא (Rudolph, Abhängigkeit, 41; Horovitz, JPN, 188; Fischer, Glossar, Nachtrag to 86; Ahrens, Christliches, 26; Muḥammad, 134). The whole conception seems to have been strongly influenced by the Christian Logos doctrine,¹ though the word would seem to have arisen from the Targumic use of מימרא.«
▪ …

1. Grimme, System, 50 ff.

west

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl emir; admiral ↗ʔamīr.

deriv

► ʔamr wāqiʕ, n., (accomplished) fact
► ʔamr maʕrūf, n., common knowledge
► fī ʔawwal al-ʔamr, adv., at first, in the beginning
► li-ʔamrⁱⁿ mā, adv., for some reason or other
► ʔa‑laysa ’l-ʔamr kaḏālik?, expr., isn’t it so?
► ʔammā wa-ʔamr kaḏālik, expr., things being as they are, there will, no doubt
► mahmā yakun min ʔamr, expr., whatever may happen; however things may be
► huwa bayna ʔamraynⁱ, expr., he has two possibilities (or alternatives)
► al-ʔamr allaḏī, rel.n., which (introducing a relative clause the antecedent of which is another clause)
► quḍiya ʔamruh, expr., it’s all over with him; in the latter and similar phrases, ʔamruh is a frequent paraphrase of ‘he’.

► ʔāmara, vb. III, to ask s.o.’s (DO) advice, consult (s.o.): L-stem, assoc., from ²ʔamr.
► taʔāmara, vb. VI, 1 to take counsel, deliberate together, confer, consult with each other; 2 to plot, conspire (ʕalà against): Lt-stem, recipr., from ²ʔamr (lit., *‘to take each other’s advice on an issue, ʔamr); [v2] seems to be a rather late development.
► ĭʔtamara, vb. VIII, 1 to deliberate, take counsel (bi‑ about); 2 to conspire, plot, hatch a plot (ʕalà against s.o.): Gt-stem, self-ref., from ²ʔamr (lit., *‘to ponder for o.s. over an issue, ʔamr) | ĭʔtamara bi-ʔamrih, vb. VIII, to carry out s.o.’s orders.

► ʔamāraẗ, pl. ‑āt, ʔamāʔirᵘ, n.f., sign, token, indication, symptom, mark, characteristic: exact semantic relation to ²ʔamr unclear.
► ^BP#2838muʔāmaraẗ, pl. ‑āt, n.f., 1 deliberation, counsel, conference; 2 plot, conspiracy: vn. III.
► taʔāmur, n., 1 joint consultation, counsel, deliberation, conference; 2 plot, conspiracy: vn. VI.
► ĭʔtimār, n., 1 deliberation, counsel, conference; 2 plot, conspiracy: vn. VIII.
► ĭstiʔmāraẗ (frequently written ĭstimāraẗ), n.f., form, blank: singulative of vn. X, from *‘(document/move) to ask for a decree, ¹ʔamr, or to look into a matter, ²ʔamr’ (?).
► mutaʔāmirūn, n.pl., conspirators, plotters: PA VI, pl.m.
► muʔtamirūn, n.pl., 1 conspirators, plotters; 2 members of a congress, convention, or conference, conferees: PA VIII, pl.m.
► ^BP#394muʔtamar, pl. ‑āt, n., conference; convention, congress: n.loc. VIII, lit., *‘place to consult each other’. | muʔtamar al-ṣulḥ, n., peace conference.

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗ʔamara, ↗ʔimmar, ↗ʔamāraẗ, ↗ʔamīr, ↗(ʔa)mīrī, ↗taʔmūr, ↗muʔāmaraẗ, ↗ĭstiʔmāraẗ, ↗muʔtamar, as well as, for the whole picture, ↗√ʔMR.

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