دعو

Core meaning

To call: to make someone come by voice or by name, whether one summons him, invokes him, or calls him to something.

Uses

1. دَعَا, يَدْعُو, ٱدْعُ → "to call", "to call to" : to summon someone, or to call him to a way.

   • «وَٱدْعُ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ» — "and call to your Guardian" (22:67)
   • «قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى دَعَوْتُ قَوْمِى لَيْلًۭا وَنَهَارًۭا» — "My Guardian, indeed I have called my people night and day" (71:5)

2. دَعَا + God or a deity → "to invoke" : the call addressed to God, or to what is taken as a deity besides Him.

   • «قُلِ ٱدْعُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ أَوِ ٱدْعُوا۟ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنَ» — "Invoke God, or invoke the All-Benevolent" (17:110)
   • «وَٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِۦ لَا يَسْتَجِيبُونَ لَهُم بِشَىْءٍ» — "and those they invoke besides Him respond to them in nothing" (13:14)

3. دُعَآء, دَعْوَة → "the call", "the invocation" : the call itself, man's as well as God's; turned toward God, دُعَآء is "the invocation".

   • «أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ» — "I answer the call of the one who calls upon Me, when he calls upon Me" (2:186)
   • «لَهُۥ دَعْوَةُ ٱلْحَقِّ» — "To Him belongs the call of truth" (13:14)
   • «إِنَّ رَبِّى لَسَمِيعُ ٱلدُّعَآءِ» — "My Guardian surely hears the invocation" (14:39)

4. دَعْوَىٰ → "the cry" : the call a group raises with one voice: avowal or praise.

   • «فَمَا كَانَ دَعْوَىٰهُمْ إِذْ جَآءَهُم بَأْسُنَآ» — "Their only cry, when Our rigor came to them" (7:5)

5. أَدْعِيَآء → "adopted sons" : those called sons without being so.

   • «وَمَا جَعَلَ أَدْعِيَآءَكُمْ أَبْنَآءَكُمْ» — "nor has He made your adopted sons your sons" (33:4)

6. تَدَّعُونَ → "to ask for" : to call to oneself what one wants to obtain.

   • «وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا مَا تَدَّعُونَ» — "and you will have therein whatever you ask for" (41:31)

Evidence from the text

Every form keeps the call. Man calls men (71:5) and calls them to God (16:125, 22:67); he calls God, who answers the call (2:186, 40:60), and this call turned toward Him is the invocation, which God hears (3:38, 14:39) and which Ibrahim asks Him to accept (14:40), whereas the call sent to people remains "the call" (21:45, 24:63, 27:80); he also calls what does not answer, and the text compares that call to the gesture of one who stretches his palms toward water so that it may reach his mouth (13:14). God Himself calls, with a single call, those who will come forth from the earth (30:25).

The nouns confirm it: the cry of the peoples seized is nothing but the avowal of their wrongdoing (7:5), and adopted sons are sons only by the name they are called by, which 33:4 refuses to confuse with sonship.

Distinctions

• ندو — to send out a call over a distance, whereas دَعَا makes the one called come

See also

جوب (to answer)