Exploring Time in the Arabic Dictionary: “the Present”

ذِكْرى

root: ذ-ك-ر / noun / plural: ذِكرَيات / definition: a memory

Sometimes, we spend so long immersed in thoughts of the future and memories of the past that we forget that we’re floating in the present.

I remember writing about floating, and then I think about how every all-consuming present of mine—well, all of ours—has become a past, and how every future feels like a horizon when—in fact—it’s just another present.

And with those thoughts stirred up, we tumble back into our Exploring Time series. This time, we’re meditating on the present, الحاضر.

حاضِر

root: ح-ض-ر

The Arabic word for the present, الحاضر, is derived from a sound root (ح-ض-ر) and takes the form of an active participle (اسم فاعِل). A form I active participle, to be precise.

That means that حاضِر is derived from the form I verb حَضَرَ / يَحضُرُ, which carries meanings such as:

to be present (following absence)
to attend
to be ready
to arrive
to come into someone’s presence

So, being the active participle of this verb, it follows that حاضِر means:

the one who/that is present (following absence)
the one attending something
the one that is ready
the one that has arrived, or is arriving
the one who has come, or is coming, into someone’s presence

Lane’s Lexicon adds that حاضر is an active participle that can be understood through a passive participle (اسم مفعول) lens too, carrying meanings like:

the [place] where people are present or arrive

الحاضر, then, is the thing that has arrived after being absent. And not only that, but it is constantly arriving. (Active participles carry the implication of the present continuous.)

الحاضر is that which is ready to come into our presence, whether we realise it or not.

And الحاضر—keeping in mind Lane’s—is also something that we arrive at and are constantly arriving at. الحاضر is where we are present, and where we exist.

If the present, الحاضر, is constantly coming into our presence and we are ever-arriving in its one: then are we even separate entities? Or are we, ourselves, or some part of us, the present? Or is the present us?

Are we—us and the present—intertwined in some sort of dance through the concept of time?

Or are we just getting ourselves tangled in thoughts?

I’d love to hear your reflections.

That’s all for now.

!إلى اللقاء