خ ل قcreating; character

الخلق · al-khalq, al-khuluq · creation, people; a trait of character

• Met in: V1 p3 ¶1: «مع أصناف الخلق», "with the different kinds of people" (khalq); and ¶6: «كل خلق مذموم», "every blameworthy trait of character" (khuluq).
• Dictionary forms: خَلْق, creation, created beings (corpus lemma, 52 times in the Quran), and خُلُق, a trait of character (Lane's headword; corpus lemma, 2 times). Same letters, different vowels. The book is printed without vowels, so the sentence decides which one is meant.
• Pattern: خَلْق is فَعْل, the verbal noun of خَلَقَ, "he created" (corpus lemma, 184 times). خُلُق is فُعُل. Its plural is the أخلاق of «أخلاق النبوة» (V1 p3 ¶1) and «أخلاق النفس» (V1 p4 ¶2).
• Meaning here: In ¶1 and ¶5, people (the created beings). In ¶6 and ¶7, a trait of character, the unit the last two quarters of the Ihya are built from.

Ibn Faris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root خلق, vol 2, p 213

الخاء واللام والقاف أصلان: أحدهما تقدير الشيء، والآخر ملاسة الشيء

Two origins: one is measuring out a thing (taqdīr), the other the smoothness of a thing. (Creating is "measuring out": Lane's first sense of خَلْق is "the act of measuring; or determining the measure, proportion" of a thing.)

Urdu bridge

All three live in Urdu: خالق (Creator), مخلوق (creation, people), and اخلاق (manners, character), with خلیق (well-mannered). Urdu keeps the two senses apart with different words, as Arabic does with vowels. (to be confirmed)

Quran

261 words from this root (Quranic Arabic Corpus). Most common: خَلَقَ (created) ×184, خَلْق (creation) ×52, خَٰلِق (Creator) ×12. خُلُق (character) ×2.

وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ

And indeed, you are of a great moral character.

Surah Al-Qalam (68), ayah 4 · Saheeh International

Why this ayah: The Prophet ﷺ is praised for his khuluq; the Quarter of Customs ends with a book on "the character of prophethood".

In the Ihya

الخلق: 1,331 times in the Ihya. The count cannot tell khalq from khuluq, because the text has no vowels.