Fitna (word)

fitan; Arabic: فتنة , فتن: "temptation, trial; sedition, civil strife, conflict"[1]) is an Arabic term that denotes concepts such as temptation, trial, sedition, civil strife, and conflict.

Arabic, in common with other Semitic languages like Hebrew, employs a system of root letters combined with vowel patterns to constitute its whole range of vocabulary.

Edward William Lane, in his Arabic-English Lexicon compiled from various traditional Arabic lexicographical sources available in Cairo in the mid-19th-century, reported that "to burn" is the "primary signification" of the verb.

[3] The definitions offered by Lane match those suggested by Badawi and Haleem in their dictionary of Qur'anic usage.

They gloss the triliteral root as having the following meanings: "to purify gold and silver by smelting them; to burn; to put to the test, to afflict (in particular as a means of testing someone's endurance); to disrupt the peace of a community; to tempt, to seduce, to allure, to infatuate.

In addition, Wehr glosses the noun fitna as also meaning "charm, charmingness, attractiveness; enchantment, captivation, fascination, enticement, temptation; infatuation, intrigue; sedition, riot, discord, dissension, civil strife.

After his return from the first Badr encounter (Battle of Safwan), Muhammad sent Abdullah ibn Jahsh in Rajab with 12 men on a fact-finding operation.

Abdullah ibn Jahsh returned to Medina with the booty and with the two captured Quraysh tribe members.

[8] Muhammad initially disapproved of that act and suspended any action as regards the camels and the two captives on account of the prohibited months.

This means that trying to force Muslims to revert from their religion and re-embrace Kufr after they had believed is worse than killing, says Allah.'

[8] Badawi & Haleem note that the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (Arabic: ف ت ن) occurs in 6 different forms a total of 60 times in the Qur'an.

The triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (Arabic: ف ت ن), as noted above, bears a range of significations, even in the Qur'an itself.

For example, in Qur'an 2:191, the command to fight is justified on the grounds that "persecution (al-fitnatu) is worse than slaying."

This sense of the root bears the further sense of a "tribulation" or "difficulty" in such verses as, for example: Qur'an 20:40, where Moses, after killing a man in Egypt, was "tried with a heavy trial"[14] by being forced to flee and to live among the Midians for many years; and Qur'an 22:11, where some believers are characterized as worshipping God "upon a narrow marge,"[15] since they are happy so long as their life is relatively secure and easy, but as soon as they experience a trial, they turn away from God.

The root also bears the sense of "temptation," as in Qur'an 57:14, where those who were hypocritical in their faith will be turned away and told by the steadfast believers, from whom they are separated, "ye tempted one another, and hesitated, and doubted, and vain desires beguiled you till the ordinance of Allah came to pass; and the deceiver deceived you concerning Allah."

In Qur'an 20:90, Aaron is said to have warned the Israelites, when Moses had left them to meet with God for forty days, that the Golden Calf was only something they were being tempted by (or, in Pickthall's translation, "seduced with").

"On account of the struggles that marked Mu'āwiya's advent, the term fitna was later applied to any period of disturbances inspired by schools or sects that broke away from the majority of believers.