فكّر
fakkara
To think and ponder, and in the end to perceive and know the patterns and will of God.
What it means
Fakkara means to reflect with effort, turning a matter over until its meaning is clear. In the Quran this reflection has a direction: it moves from the signs of creation to their Maker. After naming rain, crops, night and day, sun and moon, the Quran says: “In that are signs for people who reflect” (16:11–12). Believers are described as those who “reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth” (3:191). The verb is one of the Quran’s favored ways to invite the reader to think.
The same word underlies tafakkur, the practice of contemplating the world as evidence of God’s power and care. Faruqi treats it as the thinking that ends in knowledge of the divine patterns and will, so that thought is an act of worship as well as an exercise of the mind. For this reason, the Muslim tradition has never treated serious thought as opposed to faith.
Often misunderstood as
Thought is sometimes taken to be a secular activity apart from faith; the Quran presents reflection on creation as a path to knowing God.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 43, listed as FAKKARA. The definition is restated here.