Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ĭstiqlāl is a vn. of the form X vb. ↗ĭstaqalla, *Št-stem of ↗²qalla. In modern usage, it is lexicalized with the meaning ‘independence’ (but continues to function also as gerund of ĭstaqalla which still displays a broader semantic spectrum, with derivations also from ↗¹qalla).
▪ The meaning ‘independence’ seems to have developed, ultimately, from an original *‘to wish to stand out, separate o.s.’ (↗ĭstaqalla, values [v3]-[v6]), perh. itself based on ↗¹qullaẗ ‘highest point, peak, summit’ or (if Wahrmund II 1887 is reliable) on a (now obsol.) adj. ^†qull ‘lonely, alone, standing apart’. In the meaning ‘independence’, first attested around 1850, ĭstiqlāl is prob. a calque, rendering Fr indépendance. The term seems to have suggested itself as it had been used, in Ottoman administrative language, for the unlimited, unrestricted, sovereign power of a provincial gouvernor, military commanders, etc., almost synonymous to ↗ĭstibdād ‘absolute rule; (> despotism)’. Another attestation of the modern meaning is the Foreword of Ḫalīl al-Ḫūrī’s novel-cum-epistle, Way, ʔiḏan lastu bi-ʔIfranǧī! (first installments 1859), where the author-narrator pleads for an ĭstiqlāl ḏātī ‘independence of the self’, meaning first and foremost creative freedom and freedom of expression, but also an independent local/regional/‘national’ identity.
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hist

▪ 538 (a pre-Islamic poet, in ʔAmālī al-Qālī) ĭstaqalla bi-’l-šayʔ ʻto take upon o.s., shoulder a burden, bear’ – DHDA.
▪ 678 (ʕĀʔišaẗ bt. ʔAbī Bakr, in Musnad ʔA. b. Ḥanbal) ĭstaqallat-hu ’l-raʕdaẗ ʻhe was overcome by anger, anger took hold of him’ – DHDA.
▪ 694 (al-ʔAḫṭal) mustaqill ʻtaking s.th. up and carrying it away’ – DHDA.
▪ ClassAr (Kazimirski1860) ĭstaqalla ʻ[…]; 3 partir, s’en aller (se dit des hommes); 4 hisser sur ses épaules ou sur sa tête et porter (p.ex., une cruche); 5 être haut, sublime, bien haut au-dessus de nos têtes (en parlant de la voûte des cieux, etc.); 6 grandir (se dit des plantes); 7 s’élever très-haut (fī dans les airs, se dit d’un oiseau); 8 s’enorgueillir, s’élever au-dessus de ses semblables (se dit d’un homme fier); 9 se rétablir et se lever (se dit d’un malade); 10 être saisi d’un tremblement; 11 se mettre en colère; 12 saisir qn (se dit d’un tremblement); 13 s’emparer exclusivement de qc (p.ex., du pouvoir), et de là, être souverain indépendant’; ĭstiqlāl 1 vn. X; 2 ʻindépendance, pouvoir indépendant d’un souverain’; mustaqill bi-ʔamri-h ʻindépendant (souverain)’.
▪ 1850 ‘sovereign independence’, specifically cited in a British consular dispatch of 1858 from Jerusalem – Lewis 1988.
▪ 1859 (Ḫ. al-Ḫūrī, foreword to Way, ʔiḏan lastu bi-ʔIfranǧī!): ĭstiqlāl ḏātī ‘independence of the self’.
▪ 1860s (Zenker1866) OttTu ĭstiḳlāl ‘action de s’emparer exclusivement de qc, pouvoir absolu, indépendance, souveraineté; plein pouvoir; persévérance, intrépidité, vigueur | das ausschliesslich haben, ungetheilt mit anderen, Machtvollkommenheit, unumschränkte Macht; Selbständigkeit, Unabhängigkeit, Unerschrockenheit, Entschlossenheit, Ausdauer, Beharrlichkeit, Kraft’; ĭstiḳlālī ‘commissaire spécial, revêtu de pleins pouvoirs | Bevollmächtigter’; ĭstiḳlāliyya ‘indépendance | Unabhängigkeit’. – (Bustānī1869) ĭstaqalla bi-raʔyi-h ‘ĭstabadda bi-h; ĭstaqalla (ruler, gouvernor, wālī) ‘tafarrada bi’l-wilāyaẗ (to rule alone), lam yušrik-hu fī-hā ġayru-h (nobody else sharing him power with him)’
▪ 1880s (Wahrmund II 1887) ĭstaqalla ‘[…]; unabhängig sein, für sich handeln (Gouverneur, s. mustaqill); […]’; mustaqill ‘frei für sich bestehend, selbstständig, besonder, unabhängig, frei verfügend, absolut gebietend, absolut; fest, ausdauernd; hoch (Himmel)’; mustaqillan ‘besonders, eigens, absolut’, mustaqillāt ‘Besonderheiten’; ĭstiqlāl ‘absolute Herrschaft od. Vollmacht’; ĭstiqlālī ‘mit Vollmacht bekleidet’
▪ 1890s (Lane Suppl. 1893) ĭstaqalla ʻto be independent, alone, absolute, with none to share or participate’; ~ bi-nafsi-h ‘dto.; to manage o.’s affairs alone, thoroughly, soundly, vigorously’; huwa lā yastaqillu bi-hāḏā ʻhe is not able to do this (by himself)’
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cogn

▪ ↗ĭstaqalla, ↗¹qullaẗ.
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disc

▪ ĭstiqlāl can hardly be connected to the meaning *‘small, little, light’ that is one of the main values attached to ↗QLː(QLL), appearing, among others, in one of the meanings of vb. X, ĭstaqalla, namely [v1] ‘to find (s.th.) little, small, inconsiderable, insignificant, trifling; to esteem lightly, undervalue, despise; to make light (of), set little store (by), care little (for)’. This value is based on ↗¹qalla. In contrast, the meaning ‘independence’ is prob. akin to other meanings of ĭstaqalla like [v2] ‘to pick up, raise, lift; to carry away; [v3] to board (a ship, or the like); [v4] to rise; [v6] to possess alone’. Prob. all of these have a basic *‘to be high, excel, (wish to) stand out, separate o.s.’ in common (in itself perh. based on ↗¹qullaẗ ‘highest point, peak, summit’). Earliest reflexes of the old basic idea of ‘separating o.s., acting alone, wishing to stand out’ can be found in the value ‘to set out, leave, start traveling’ of vb. X, ĭstaqalla (accord. to DHDA first attested around 517 CE) and in ĭstaqalla ‘to rise, be visible high up in the sky (stars, etc.)’ and the PA X mustaqill ‘elevated, high, sublime’, ascribed to Imruʔ al-Qays (DHDA: ca. 544 CE). However, it is only since, roughly, the 1850s that ĭstiqlāl appears in the modern sense of ‘sovereign independence’, as a loan translation (calque), rendering Fr indépendance. The reason why ĭstiqlāl was chosen to translate the Fr term goes probably back to Ottoman administrative usage, where the term was used to express the sovereign power and unlimited discretion of high Ottoman officials, esp. military commanders and province gouvernors (at the time, the meaning of ĭstiqlāl was nearly identical with that of ↗ĭstibdād, which would develop into an equivalent of ‘absolutism’, then also ‘despotism’). »By the late nineteenth century, the use of ĭstiqlāl in the sense of ‘political sovereignty’ or ‘independence’ was general in both Turkish and Arabic. Together with ‘freedom’, it came to express the ultimate objective of political struggle against oppressive rule in the period of European imperial domination, and the somewhat longer period of European intellectual influence« (Lewis 1988: 112). Alongside with the political meaning also a more general, personal meaning can already be sensed in Ḫalīl al-Ḫūrī’s foreword to his novel-cum-epistle, 1859 Way, ʔiḏan lastu bi-ʔIranǧī! (‘Woe, so I am not a European then!’, first installments 1859 in the author’s own Ḥadīqaẗ al-ʔaḫbār). In this foreword, al-Ḫūrī appeals to his readers to always remain aware of al-ĭstiqlāl al-ḏātī ‘the independence of the self’ and their freedom: »Nobody should allow another person to (ab)use him as an instrument to fulfil the other’s wishes or goals« (al-Ḫūrī 1860: 20-21 / ed. Dāġir 2009: 64).
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deriv

►ĭstiqlālī, 1a adj., of or pertaining to independence, independence (used attributively); b n., proponent of independence: nisba formation, from ĭstiqlāl.
►^BP#1479mustaqill, adj., independent; autonomous; separate, distinct, particular: PA X.

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗¹qalla, ↗²qalla, ↗ĭstaqalla, ↗qill, ↗qallaẗ, ↗¹qullaẗ, ↗²qullaẗ, ↗³qullaẗ, ↗¹qilliyyaẗ, and ↗²qilliyyaẗ, as well as, for the whole picture, root entry ↗√QLː (QLL).

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