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أَزَلٌ ذ i. q. قِدَمٌ [i. e. Eternity, with respect to past time, or considered retrospectively; existence from eternity; or ancientness] (S, K, TA) that is without beginning; (TA;) or the continuance of existence in decreed times interminable in respect of the past; like as أَبَدٌ is the continuance of existence in decreed times interminable in respect of the future; (KT;) or that [existence, or time,] which has no extremity in its beginning; like قِدَمٌ; and أَبَدٌ is that which has no extremity in its latter part; like بَقَآءٌ: the former is existence without any beginning: (Kull p. 31:) said to be from the phrase لَمْ يَزَلْ [“he, or it, has not ceased” to be &c.; i. e. “has ever” been &c. (see أَزَلِىٌّ）]: or, accord. to some, from أَزْلٌ signifying “narrowness;” because the intellect is prevented by its narrowness from perceiving its beginning: (MF:) ازل is a name for that of which the mind is prevented by its narrowness from determining the limit of the beginning; from أَزْلٌ meaning “narrowness;”; and ابد is a name for that of which the mind shrinks from, or shuns, the determining the limit of the end; from أُبُودٌ meaning the act of “shrinking” from a thing, or “shunning” it. (Kull pp. 30 and 31.) Hence the saying, كَانَ فِى الأَزَلِ قَادِرًا عَالِمًا [He was, or has been, ever, powerful, knowing]. (A, TA.) The phrase أَزَلَ الآزَالِ [During the space, without beginning, of all past times; or ever, in all past times;] is like the phrase أَبَدَ الآبَادِ; said to be no evidence of the use of آزَالٌ as a pl. of أَزَلٌ in a general way by the Arabs of the classical ages, as it is here added merely as a corroborative. (MF in art. ابد.) [See also أَزَلِىٌّ.]
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.
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