21/10/2023
Meanings of the letter ayn (ع) and the difference between TO KNOW (عَلِمَ) and TO KNOW (عَرَفَ)
What is the difference between TO KNOW (عَلِمَ) and TO KNOW (عَرَفَ)? If you consult a good Arabic-English dictionary you will get a bunch of synonyms for the word KNOW and in the end you will remain confused. Books that try to discuss the difference between KNOWLEDGE ilm (عِلْم) and KNOWLEDGE ma’rifa (مَعْرِفَة) usually engage in elaborate philosophical discussions which makes it even more difficult to understand the real difference between the words.
Here I will show that the difference between the words can be easily understood by understanding my newly discovered single letter meanings of Arabic letters and words. The letter ayn (ع) has a general meaning of TO BE AWARE (وَعَى) from the root wa-ayn-ya (و ع ي). Now, for meaning of Arabic words the consonant is most important and often vowels can be dropped or omitted. For example, as shown in the attached pic, note that in the command tense for the word TO BE AWARE (وَعَى) the vowels wa (و) and ya (ي) are dropped and we get just ai (عِ) which mean BE AWARE as a command. Also note that in Arabic, single dots have opposite meanings so gyn (غ) would mean TO BE NOT AWARE OF. This meaning of gyn (غ) is seen in TO BE UNAWARE OF (غَافِل عَنْ). So, you get the meaning of the single letter ayn (ع) as TO BE AWARE.
Now, let us apply this knowledge to TO KNOW (عَلِمَ). We can write TO KNOW = (عَلِمَ) = TO BE AWARE (وَعَى) for ayn (ع), LANGUAGE (لِسَان) for lam (ل) and MEANING (مَعْنًى) for mim (م). So, basically TO KNOW (عَلِمَ) means to be aware of by using language as a means for meaning. So, when you read a book or study in school you are getting KNOWLEDGE (عِلْم). In case of TO KNOW (عَرَفَ) we can write TO KNOW (عَرَفَ) = TO BE AWARE (وَعَى) (ع), SEE (رَأى)(ر), UNDERSTAND (فَهِمَ)(ف). So, TO KNOW (عَرَفَ) means to understand something by seeing it or TO RECOGNIZE. See, now how easy it is to understand the concept of DEMENTIA (خَرَفٌ) from the above understanding. For the word DEMENTIA kharaf (خَرَفٌ) we can simply write TO LOSE TO RECOGNIZE (خَسِرَ عَرَفَ). Or like before we can write TO HAVE DEMENTIA = (خَرُفَ) = TO LOSE (خَسِرَ) (خ), SEE (رَأى)(ر), UNDERSTAND (فَهِمَ)(ف).
This difference between TO KNOW (عَلِمَ) and TO KNOW (عَرَفَ) represent the structural and functional difference of the cerebral hemispheres of the human brain. The left cerebral hemisphere is associated with language and verbal processing and so KNOWLEDGE (عِلْم).is associated with the left cerebral hemisphere as in gaining knowledge by reading a book. But the right cerebral hemisphere is associated with non-verbal, non-linguistic means of knowing and KNOWLEDGE (مَعْرِفَة) is associated with the right cerebral hemisphere as in gaining knowledge through pictures, symbols, or patterns.