In the G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco, it is said the Nazarenes (Naṣārā) say there are three aqānīm, or principles, namely, wujūd (entity), ḥayāt (life), and ʿilm (knowledge); and also Ab (Father), Ibn (Son), and Rūḥu ʾl-Quds (Holy Spirit). [[INJIL], [JESUS], [SPIRIT].]

It is evident neither Muḥammad nor his followers (either immediate or remote), had any true conception of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, but the elimination of the Holy Spirit from the Trinity is not strange, when we remember that Muḥammad was under the impression that the angel Gabriel was the Holy Ghost.

As the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of several stumbling-blocks to the Muslim’s reception of Christianity, we cannot refrain from quoting Charles Kingsley’s words addressed to Thomas Cooper on the subject (vol. i. p. 311):—

“They will say ‘Three in one’ is contrary to sense and experience. Answer, ‘That is your ignorance.’ Every comparative anatomist will tell you the exact contrary, that among the most common, though the most puzzling phenomena, is multiplicity in unity—divided life in the same individual of every extraordinary variety of case. That distinction of persons with unity of individuality (what the old schoolmen properly called substance) is to be met with in some thousand species of animals, e.g. all the compound polypes, and that the soundest physiologists, like Huxley, are compelled to talk of these animals in metaphysic terms, just as paradoxical as, and almost identical with, those of the theologian. Ask them then, whether granting one primordial Being who has conceived and made all other beings, it is absurd to suppose in Him, some law of multiplicity in unity, analogous to that on which He has constructed so many millions of His creatures.


“But my heart demands the Trinity, as much as my reason. I want to be sure that God cares for us, that God is our Father, that God has interfered, stooped, sacrificed Himself for us. I do not merely want to love Christ—a Christ, some creation or emanation of God’s—whose will and character, for aught I know, may be different from God’s. I want to love and honour the absolute, abysmal God Himself, and none other will satisfy me; and in the doctrine of Christ being co-equal and co-eternal, sent by, sacrificed by, His Father, that He might do His Father’s will, I find it; and no puzzling texts, like those you quote, shall rob me of that rest for my heart, that Christ is the exact counterpart of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being.”

TROVES, Arabic luqt̤ah (لقطة‎), signifies property which a person finds on the ground, and takes away for the purpose of preserving it in the manner of a trust. A trove under ten dirhams must be advertised for some days, or as long as he may deem expedient; but if it exceed ten dirhams in value, he must advertise it for a year. (Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 266.)

TRUMPET. Arabic ṣūr (صور‎). According to the Qurʾān, [Sūrah xxxix. 68], the trumpet at the Day of Resurrection shall be blown twice. “The trumpet shall be blown (first), and those who are in the heavens and in the earth shall swoon (or die), save whom God pleases. Then it shall be blown again, and, lo! they shall rise again and look on.”

Al-Baiẓāwī says there will only be these two blasts, but Traditionists assert there will be three. The blast of consternation, the blast of examination, and the blast of resurrection, for an account of which, see the article on [RESURRECTION].

TUBBAʿ (تبع‎). A tribe of Ḥimyarite Arabs, whose kings were called Tubbaʿ, or “Successors,” and who are mentioned in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah xliv. 35]: “Are they better than the people of Tubbaʿ and those before them? Verily, they were sinners, and we destroyed them.”