Arabic root

ن-و-ي

Nun-Waw-Ya

1 word from this root family

About this root

Nun-Waw-Ya (ن-و-ي) has 1 word in the Fahm dictionary: niyyah (intention / purpose).

In the Quran, words built on this root occur 1 time in 1 verse, across 1 of the 114 suras. The first is in 6:95.

Words from this root

Word	Meaning	Type	Taught in
نِيَّةٌ niyyah	intention / purpose	noun, B1	Character, Community, and Worship

In the Quran

۞ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ فَالِقُ ٱلْحَبِّ وَٱلنَّوَىٰ ۖ يُخْرِجُ ٱلْحَىَّ مِنَ ٱلْمَيِّتِ وَمُخْرِجُ ٱلْمَيِّتِ مِنَ ٱلْحَىِّ ۚ ذَٰلِكُمُ ٱللَّهُ ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ تُؤْفَكُونَ

Lo! Allah (it is) Who splitteth the grain of corn and the date-stone (for sprouting). He bringeth forth the living from the dead, and is the bringer-forth of the dead from the living. Such is Allah. How then are ye perverted?

Quran 6:95

Arabic text: Tanzil Quran Text (Uthmani 1.1), CC BY 3.0, tanzil.net. English: Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930), public domain, via Project Gutenberg. Counts and verse choice: Quranic Arabic Corpus morphology data (corpus.quran.com).

Word cards with examples

B1noun

نِيَّةٌ

niyyah

intention / purpose

Example

وَمَا أُمِرُوا إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ

wa-mā umirū illā liyaʿbudū Allāha mukhlisīna lahu ad-dīn

And they were not commanded except to worship Allah, sincere to Him in religion (98:5)

Root: ن-و-ي Quranic

Grammar

Feminine noun. From نَوَى (to intend). Plural: نِيَّاتٌ (niyyāt). While the word itself appears rarely in the Quran, the concept permeates Islamic law and ethics.

Culture

The Prophet ﷺ said: 'Actions are but by intentions' (innamā al-aʿmālu bin-niyyāt) - perhaps the most quoted hadith, making niyyah the foundation of all deeds.