Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ǧadal is the vn. I of the (now obsolete) vb. I, ^†ǧadila (a, ǧadal), vb. I, ‘to be quarrelsome, contentious’. In ClassAr, the vb. I (and esp. also vb.s II and III) could still refer to physical fighting, combat, cf., e.g. ^†ǧaddala ‘to knock s.o. down’, ǧādala ‘to fight s.o.’). However, the most widespread use is as *‘fighting each other with words’. This is also the only sense with which ǧadal and related lexemes appear in the Qur’ān.
▪ Metaphorical use is based on an original *‘twisting tight, braiding, plaiting’ (↗ǧadala) which has developed a wide spectrum of semantic extensions, building, on the one hand, on figurative use of *‘twisting’ (> ‘getting into each other = quarreling, wrangling, fighting, disputing’; > ‘shapely, nicely “knitted”, well-formed, handsome’; > ‘way, mode; habit, nature, determination of mind [i.e., the way a person is “knitted, made up”]; > ‘rivulet, i.e., intertwining trickles of water’, > ‘table, chart, intersection of lines’, etc.) and, on the other hand, on *‘firmness, solidity, strength’ (> ‘maturity, ripeness’, > ‘growth, largeness, bigness’, > ‘stronghold, fortification’) – for an overview, see “root” entry ↗√ǦDL.
▪ The range of meanings of ǧadal in ClassAr is summarized by Lane ii 1865 as: ‘vehemence, violence, in altercation or disputation or litigation, sharpness, acrimony in dispute; ability\power to practise it; (also ǧadl, pl. ǧudūl, ʔaǧdāl) well-made syllogism’;¹ (ʕilm al-) ǧadal ‘polemics’; ǧadalī ‘querelleur, disputeur’.
▪ The value ‘intellectual argument, dispute’, which is so prominent in Ar, is only very scarcely attested outside Ar (only in EthSem, where it came to mean ‘to kill’).
▪ …

1. Lane: »A syllogism composed of things well known, or conceded; the object of which is to convince the opponent, and to make him to understand who fails to apprehend the premises of the demonstration.«

hist

▪ Earliest attestations of ‘fighting, quarelling, disputing’ and directly related values accord. to DHDA (as of 13Jul2021) (for attestations of other values see “root” entry ↗√ǦDL; particular sub-values: for ‘to twist; rope’ see ↗ǧadala; for ‘strength, firmness’ see ↗miǧdāl; for ‘rivulet; table, chart’ see ↗ǧadwal):

539 ǧidāl ‘quarrelsome argument, fight’
604 ǧādala ‘to argue, quarrel with s.o.’
616 ǧadal ‘vehemence, violence, in altercation or disputation or litigation, sharpness, acrimony in dispute’
eC7 ǧadal (disputation, contention, argument) Q 18:54 wa-kāna ’l-ʔinsānu ʔakṯara šayʔin ǧadalan ‘but man is the most contentious of all creatures [lit., things]’. – ǧādala [v. III, trans.] 1 (to argue or dispute with) Q 11:32 qālū yā Nūḥu qad ǧādaltanā fa-ʔakṯarta ǧidālanā ‘they said, “Noah!, you have disputed with us, and have put up a lot of disputation with us”’; 2 ([with prep. ʕan] to plead for, argue the case of) Q 4:109 hā-ʔantum hāʔulāʔi ǧādaltum ʕanhum fī ’l-ḥayāẗi ’l-dunyā fa-man yuǧādilu ’ḷḷāha ʕanhum yawma ’l-qiyāmaẗ? ‘here you are, the ones who argued on their behalf in the life of this world, but who will argue on their behalf with God on the Day of Resurrection?’. – ǧidāl (arguing/argument, disputing/disputation, contending/contention) Q 2:197 fa-lā rafaṯa wa-lā fusūqa wa-lā ǧidāla fī ’l-ḥaǧǧi ‘there is no intercourse [also interpreted as: abusive speech], misbehaviour nor disputation during/on the pilgrimage’
791 miǧdāl ‘qui aime à disputer, prompt, enclin à la dispute; fort et habile à la dispute’

cogn

▪ All values: DRS 2 (1994) #GDL-1 Akk gidl- ‘cordon torsadé, cordelière’;¹ Hbr gādal ‘tresser’, *gādil ‘tresse’; Aram gᵊdal ‘tresser’, gᵊdiltā ‘tresse’; Phlv gdyl ‘cordon’; Mand gdal ‘tresser’, gdalta ‘tresse, guirlande’; nSyr gʸädil ‘tresser’; Ar ǧadala ‘tresser une corde, la rendre solide en la tordant fortement’; Soq gadl ‘tresse’; Te gädlä ‘tresser les cheveux, coiffer’. – Ug gdl, Hbr gādōl ‘grand’, gādāl, Aram gᵊdal ‘être grand’; Mand *gdil ‘être exalté’; Ar ǧadala ‘être ferme, solide; jeter à terre, terrasser’, ǧādil ‘grand, adulte’, ǧādala ‘lutter, se quereller’; Soq gódil ‘être fort’; Gz gadala ‘être fort, l’emporter sur; tuer’, gadl ‘combat; exercice ascétique’, gadalā ‘cadavre, charogne’; Te gadälä, Tña Amh tägaddälä ‘lutter’; Amh gäddälä, *gällä ‘tuer’, gäla ‘corps’. – Ug mgdl, Hbr migdāl, Moab mgdlt (pl.), Aram migdᵊlā, Syr magdᵊlā, Ar miǧdal, LiḥAr Min mgdl ‘tour, château fort’. -2-3 […].
▪ …

1. Accord. to Zimmern1914: 35 perh. from Aram.

disc

▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ …

west

–

deriv

►faraḍa ǧadalan, expr., to assume for the sake of argument, propose as a basis for discussion.

►ǧādala, vb. III, 1a to quarrel, wrangle, bicker (DO with s.o.); b to argue, debate (DO with s.o.); c to dispute, contest (fī s.th.): L-stem, fig. use, associative.
►taǧādala, vb. VI, 1a to quarrel, have an argument; b to carry on a dispute: Lt-stem, reciproque.

►ǧadalī, 1 adj., controversial; disputatious; 2 n., a disputant: nisba-formation.
►ǧaddāl, adj., disputatious, argumentative: ints. formation (FaʕʕāL).
►miǧdāl, pl. maǧādīlᵘ, 1 n., ↗¹miǧdāl; 2 adj., disputatious, argumentative: ints. formation (miFʕāL).
►ǧidāl, n., and muǧādalaẗ, pl. -āt, n.f., 1a quarrel, argument; b dispute, discussion, debate: vn. III | lā yaqbalu ’l-ǧidāl, expr., incontestable, indisputable; lā ǧidālª and bi-lā ǧidālª, expr., incontestably, indisputably.
►muǧādil, n., disputant, opponent in dispute: PA III.

For the related complex ‘to twist tight, braid, plait’, see ↗ǧadala (ǧadl). For other values attached to the “root”, cf. ↗¹miǧdāl and ↗ǧadwal (ǦDWL) as well as, for the whole picture, root entry ↗√ǦDL.

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