Root · 4 in the Quran · 8 in 7 texts of the library
جرحTwo senses per Ibn Fāris: kasb and shaqq al-jild. (root jrh)
الجيم والراء والحاء أصلان أحدهما الكسب والثاني شق الجلد
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-lugha · English rendering AI
The family of the root
Patterns computed · our dataThe words of ج ر ح that our sources attest: the root's letters in green, the added letters in gold.
16 words4 verbs2 verbal nouns2 intensives and elatives6 other nouns1 plural1 relative or abstract
- جَرَحَhe wounded him
- جَارِحَةpredatory; extremities
- اِجْتَرَحَ—
- جَوَارِح—
- جُرُوح—
The whole family6 groups, by pattern; tap a pattern to see what it does
Verbs4جَرَحَ · اِجْتَرَحَ · جَرَّحَ
The root as an action: the bare Form I, and the Forms made by adding letters before, inside or after the root.grammar →
Form I vowels: فَعَلَ يَفْعَلُ (a – a; the imperfect from Lane's “aor.”)
Verbal nouns2تَجْرِيح · جَرْح
The action itself, named as a noun (maṣdar).grammar →
- تَجْرِيحsurgery; slanderautoForm II · Lane: inf. n.library ×1Lane
- جَرْحForm I · Lane: inf. n.LaneIbn Fāris
Intensives, qualities and the elative2جَرَّاح · جَرِيح
The quality carried far, held as a trait, or compared.grammar →
- جَرَّاحsurgeon that dresses woundsLaneintensive (faʿʿāl)library ×1Lane
- جَرِيحwoundedLanequality (faʿīl)Lane
Other nouns6جَارِحَة · جَوَارِح · جُرُوح
Nouns on other patterns; their meaning is learned word by word.grammar →
Reference
Why this shape?What each of the 11 patterns does
What each pattern does. The pattern gives a tendency, not a rule: many words have drifted into meanings of their own.
The pattern machinePour the root into a pattern; see whether the word exists
Choose a pattern; the root's letters pour into it. Then see whether the word exists in our sources. The machine makes shapes; only usage makes words.
Not in our sources. A possible shape, not a word we can show: the Quran, the library and Lane do not have it for this root.
Place noun with -a. The place noun with the feminine -a. Sometimes it is only a variant of mafʿal; often it names the place where a thing is found in abundance (maʾsada, 'a place full of lions'). So maktab is the place of writing, and maktaba, where writings are gathered: a library, a bookshop. Our summary AI
But: maktaba is not in our classical dictionaries for k-t-b: Lane and al-Jawharī give maktab ('a school'), none gives maktaba. Its sense of 'library, bookshop' fits the pattern of abundance, but that is our reading of the pattern, not a classical entry. Many mafʿala words are single items of usage (maqbara 'cemetery'), which the grammarians call heard, not formed by rule.
The grammarians on this pattern (4)
ما يكون مفعلة لازمة لها الهاء والفتحة … وذلك إذا أردت أن تكثر الشيء بالمكان، وذلك قولك: أرض مسبعة، ومأسدة
Chapter on what is mafʿala, with the -a and the a-vowel always: that is when you mean that a thing abounds in a place, as you say 'a land of many beasts of prey (masbaʿa), of many lions (maʾsada)' AI
Sībawayh (d. c. 180/796), al-Kitāb, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, 3rd ed. (Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1988), 4:94 · OpenITI line 21027–21028 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
و نحو المظنة و المقبرة فتحا و ضما ليس بقياس
and words like maẓinna and maqbara (with a or u) are not by rule AI
Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), al-Shāfiya fī ʿilm al-taṣrīf, ed. Ḥasan Aḥmad al-ʿUthmān (Mecca: al-Maktaba al-Makkiyya, 1995), 1:30 · OpenITI line 223 ↗ · on this site · OpenITI RELEASE v2025.1.9, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- “designate the place where the object signified by the noun from which they are formed, is found in large numbers or quantities” Wright, Grammar I, §247, p. 148 ↗ · on nouns of abundance, maf'ala · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
- “Nouns of time and place not unfrequently take the feminine form” Wright, Grammar I, §225, p. 128 ↗ · on maf'ala as a variant of maf'al · 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1896) · public domain
About thisWhat “attested” means here; the sources
Attested means found in our data: the Quranic Arabic Corpus (lemmas, verb Forms, participles, verbal nouns, plurals), the library's words (automatic analysis), Lane's Lexicon (his headwords, the Forms he numbers, the verbal nouns and plurals he names) and Ibn Fāris's entry. Nothing is generated for this list. Meanings are Lane's first gloss in his entry, or else the analyser's gloss (“auto”). Vowelling follows the corpus, then Lane, then the analyser; verbs are given in the regular perfect. Lane's Lexicon thins out after qāf, and a few of his entries cover several roots at once: those roots show no Lane. The patterns, written with ف ع ل, are computed by us.
The dictionaries
English: AI translation AIal-Khalīl · 170Jaraḥtuhu ajraḥuhu jarḥan (جرحته أجرحه جرحا) — 'I wounded him' — and its noun is al-jarḥ (الجرح).
al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn. The first Arabic dictionary, arranged by permutations of the root letters.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Jawharī · 393Jaraḥahu jarḥan (جرحه جرحا) — 'he wounded him' — and the noun is al-jurḥ (الجرح) with ḍamma, plural jurūḥ (جروح).
al-Jawharī (d. c. 393/1003), al-Ṣiḥāḥ. Admits only usage he judged sound.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowIbn Fāris · 395Jīm, rā', and ḥā' [form a root with] two original meanings: the first is earning/acquiring, and the second is splitting the skin.
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), Maqāyīs al-Lugha. Seeks each root's original sense (aṣl).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowal-Rāghib · 502Al-jarḥ (الجرح) is a bleeding mark on the skin.
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 502/1108), al-Mufradāt. Quranic vocabulary, from core sense to Quranic usage.
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLisān · 711Al-jarḥ (الجرح), the verb: jaraḥahu yajraḥuhu jarḥan (جرحه يجرحه جرحا) — he made a wound on him with a weapon.
Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʿArab. The great compendium of the earlier dictionaries (entry shortened).
AI AI translation of the Arabic belowLane · 1876English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
E. W. Lane (d. 1876), An Arabic-English Lexicon. English, synthesising the classical dictionaries.
Lane, Arabic-English Lexiconread Lane's entry online ↗
Technical definitions1 · Ibn ʿArabī’s Iṣṭilāḥ, al-Jurjānī’s Taʿrīfāt
الجرح المجرد
هو ما يفسق به الشاهد، ولم يوجب حقا للشرع، كما إذا شهد أن الشاهدين شربا الخمر ولم يتقادم العهد، أو للعبد، كما إذا شهد أنهما قتلا النفس عمدا، أو الشاهد الفاسق، أو أكل الربا، أو المدعي استأجره.
Al-jarḥ al-mujarrad (الجرح المجرد, 'mere/unqualified impugnment'): that by which a witness is rendered fāsiq (morally disqualified) without it establishing a right belonging to the Sharī'a [i.e., a ḥadd penalty] — as when he testifies that the two witnesses drank wine and the period [of limitation] has not lapsed — nor a right belonging to an individual ('abd) — as when he testifies that the two of them intentionally killed a person, or [testifies] that the witness is fāsiq, or that he consumed ribā (usury), or that the claimant had hired him [to give false testimony]. AI
The same letters, turned
The same three letters in all six orders. Choose one.
ج ر ح
الجيم والراء والحاء أصلان أحدهما الكسب والثاني شق الجلد
j-r-ḥ has two roots: one is earning, and the second is the splitting of the skin. AI
Ibn Fāris ↗Lisān ↗Lane ↗Quran ×4
an entry in Ibn Fārislater sources onlyin none of them
Do these six share one core meaning?
Reference
About thisal-Khalīl, Ibn Jinnī, Ibn Fāris; the counts across the dictionary
al-Khalīl (d. c. 170/786), Kitāb al-ʿAyn, as transmitted by al-Layth: a two-letter word “turns in two ways”, a three-letter word “in six ways” (masdūsa), four letters in 24, five in 120; “its used forms are written down and its unused ones dropped” (line 975 ↗). The dictionary is built on this: each chapter takes a set of letters and names which orders are used (mustaʿmal) and which unused (muhmal). The ring shows that verdict, from the chapter heading as edited (documented in the text; how much of the book is al-Khalīl's own is disputed).
A reported total. al-Suyūṭī transmits, from Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, that al-Khalīl put the possible forms, used and unused, of two to five letters at 12,305,412 (al-Muzhir, line 1347 ↗). It is reported, not found in the ʿAyn. It equals exactly the arrangements of 2 to 5 different letters out of 28 (756 + 19,656 + 491,400 + 11,793,600); the breakdown printed beside it is corrupt, and al-Zubaydī's count, given next, differs (6,659,400).
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, names the greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar): bind a three-letter root and its six orders to one meaning, and bring stray members back “by the subtlety of the craft and interpretation” (line 7536 ↗). He says himself that it does not hold for every root (line 167 ↗; line 7603 ↗).
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) gives each root its own aṣl and treats a rearranged word as maqlūb, “turned round”, and so not a root of its own: “j-b-dh is not a root, because it is a single word, turned round” (Maqāyīs, line 6147 ↗). The ring sets his aṣl for each order side by side; whether they meet is the question.
Neighbours on the ring differ by one swap of two letters.
The critique. A source quoted by al-Suyūṭī calls the greater derivation Ibn Jinnī's innovation, “not relied on in the language” (al-Muzhir, line 6159 ↗).
The other axis. The root's letters also go into patterns that keep their order and change the frame: the patterns (awzān) and the verb Forms I–X.
Across Ibn Fāris's dictionary. Of the 2,300 possible sets of three different sound letters (no hamza, w or y), 1,021 have at least one order as an entry. How many of their six orders are entries:
- 1 of 6319
- 2 of 6218
- 3 of 6164
- 4 of 6155
- 5 of 6107
- 6 of 658
- 1 of 6148
- 2 of 6108
- 3 of 6157
- 4 of 6179
- 5 of 6111
- 6 of 643
Of the orders al-Khalīl calls used, 2,097 are entries in Ibn Fāris and 267 are not; 17 that he calls unused are entries in Ibn Fāris.
Attested here means found in our digital texts (Ibn Fāris, Lisān al-ʿArab, Lane, the Quranic Arabic Corpus), with w and y kept apart and hamza spellings merged; it is our data, not a classical verdict. English beside the Arabic is AI translation. Sources and grades: docs/research/root-permutations.md.
Letters & sound
- جjīmmiddle of the tongue · voiced, stopSīb. · I. Jinnī
- رrāʾtip of the tongue, near the nūn · voiced, in betweenSīb. · I. Jinnī
- حḥāʾmiddle of the throat · voiceless, continuantSīb. · I. Jinnī
How each letter is made, in brief, from Sībawayh's and Ibn Jinnī's own sentences (linked); their words are under Reference.
Sharing two of its three letters (computed; kinship of form, not of meaning)
Reference
How it is madeSībawayh and Ibn Jinnī · phonetics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ج
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Sībawayh, line 26553 ↗
ومن وسط اللسان بينه وبين وسط الحنك الأعلى، مخرج الجيم والشين والياء
From the middle of the tongue, between it and the middle of the upper palate, is the place of the jīm, the shīn and the yāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 974 ↗
ر
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا لانحرافه إلى اللام مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26557–26558 ↗
ومن مخرج النون غير أنه أدخل في ظهر اللسان قليلا، لانحرافه إلى اللام، مخرج الراء
From the place of the nūn, except that it goes a little further onto the back of the tongue, because it leans towards the lām, is the place of the rāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, lines 980–981 ↗
ح
ومن أوسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Sībawayh, lines 26548–26549 ↗
ومن وسط الحلق مخرج العين والحاء
From the middle of the throat is the place of the ʿayn and the ḥāʾ. Ibn Jinnī, line 970 ↗
Sībawayh, al-Kitāb (ed. Hārūn) and Ibn Jinnī, Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb; OpenITI digital texts (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Full credits on each letter's page.
In the Breath of the All-MercifulIbn ʿArabī · metaphysics
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ج
Level of existence: الفلك الأطلس فلك البروج · the Atlas (starless) sphere, the sphere of the zodiacal signs
Divine Name: الغني · al-Ghanī, the Independent
Lunar mansion: الطرف · al-Ṭarf
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62085Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
المرتبة العشرية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The tenfold rank: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2582ر
Level of existence: السماء الخامسة · the fifth heaven
Divine Name: المصور · the Form-Giver (al-Muṣawwir)
Lunar mansion: الغفر · al-Ghafr
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 64675Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Nature (ch. 2)
المرتبة العشرية فحروفها حارة يابسة
The tenfold rank: its letters are hot and dry.
Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, line 2582ح
Level of existence: الجوهر الهبابي · the dust-like substance (spelled الهبابي in the text)
Divine Name: الآخر · al-Ākhir, the Last
Lunar mansion: الدبران · al-Dabarān
Futūḥāt ch. 198, line 62076Spheres of its simples (ch. 2): 10 line 2573 ↗
Meaning by vowelal-Dabbāgh · a visionary claim about a primordial “Syriac”, not historical Syriac
English throughout: AI translation of the Arabic AI
ج
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي نبوة أو ولاية إذا كان قبلها أو بعدها ما يدل على ذلك، وإلا فهي للخير الذي لا يزول أبدا.
It is prophethood or sainthood (walāya) if something before or after it indicates that. Otherwise it is for the good that never ceases.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي الخير الذي يؤكل أو ينتفع الناس منه.
It is the good that is eaten, or from which people derive benefit.
With kasra ـِ
فهي الخير القليل الذي في الذات من نور الإيمان.
It is the small good within the self from the light of faith.
ر
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي إشارة إلى جميع الخيرات الظاهرة والباطنة.
It is an indication of all goods, outward and inward.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي إشارة إلى الواحد في نفسه وهو ظاهر.
It is an indication of the one in itself, and it is manifest.
With kasra ـِ
فهي إشارة إلى الشيء الذي فيه الروح وليس من بني آدم، أو إشارة إلى الروح نفسها.
It is an indication of a thing that has spirit in it but is not of the children of Adam, or an indication of the spirit itself.
ح
With fatḥa ـَ
فهي تدل على الإحاطة والشمول للجميع.
It denotes encompassing and inclusion of everything.
With ḍamma ـُ
فهي العدد الكثير الخارج عن بني آدم كالنجوم.
It is a great number external to the children of Adam, such as the stars.
With kasra ـِ
فهي العدد الداخل في الذات أو للذات عليه ولاية كملكية العبيد والدنانير والدراهم وغير ذلك.
It is a number contained within the self, or over which the self has authority, such as ownership of slaves, dinars, dirhams and the like.
Two-letter nucleus10 roots in Ibn Fāris’s chapterج ر
Ibn Fāris groups his roots under two-letter chapters (“the X and the Y and what makes them three”). These are the roots of this root's chapter with the core sense he gives each. Setting them side by side is our juxtaposition; he does not himself draw a shared meaning. His chapter heading, line 5402 ↗
- جرزالجيم والراء والزاء أصل واحد وهو القطعQ 2 · L5403
- جرسالجيم والراء والسين أصل واحد وهو من الصوت وما بعد ذلك فمحمول عليهL5414
- جرشالجيم والراء والشين أصل واحد وهو جرش الشيء أن يدق ولا ينعم دقهL5424
- جرعالجيم والراء والعين يدل على قلة الشيء المشروبQ 1 · L5437
- جرلالجيم والراء واللام أصلان أحدهما الحجارة والآخر لون من الألوانL5449
- جروالجيم والراء والواو أصل واحد وهو الصغير من ولد الكلب ثم يحمل عليه غيره تشبيها فالجرو للكلب وغيره ويقال سبعة مجرية ومجر إذا كان معها جروهاL5482
- جريالجيم والراء والياء أصل واحد وهو انسياح الشيءQ 64 · L5489
- جربالجيم والراء والباء أصلان أحدهما الشيء البسيط يعلوه كالنبات من جنسه والآخر شيء يحوي شيئاL5499
- جردالجيم والراء والدال أصل واحد وهو بدو ظاهر الشيء حيث لا يستره ساتر ثم يحمل عليه غيره مما يشاركه في معناهQ 2 · L5539
- جرذالجيم والراء والذال كلمة واحدة الجرذ الواحد من الجرذان وبه سمي الجرذ الذي يأخذ في قوائم الدابة فأما قولهم رجل مجرد أي مجرب فهو من باب الإبدال وليس أصلL5551
In the sister scriptsHebrew ג ר חSyriac ܓ ܪ ܚ
| Arabic | ج ر ح |
| Hebrew | ג ר ח |
| Syriac | ܓ ܪ ܚ |
| Ancient South Arabian (musnad) | 𐩴 𐩧 𐩢 |
| Phoenician | 𐤂 𐤓 𐤇 |
Letter for letter, by the regular sound correspondences of the Semitic languages (Arabic keeps several sounds the others merged). This shows how the root would be spelled; whether a related word exists is a separate question, answered in the Semitic lens. Where an Arabic sibilant (s, sh) continues two older sounds, both spellings are shown.
Lenses
AIClassical lexiconAl-Khalīl gives jaraḥahu/jarḥ as the wound, jawāriḥ al-insān as the limbs that 'work' (ʿawāmil), and ijtaraḥa ʿamalan as 'to acquire';well attested
The lexicographers in chronological order, from al-Khalīl to Lane.
Al-Khalīl gives jaraḥahu/jarḥ as the wound, jawāriḥ al-insān as the limbs that 'work' (ʿawāmil), and ijtaraḥa ʿamalan as 'to acquire'; he cites the verse on jawāriḥ as trained hunting animals. Al-Jawharī adds the plurals jurūḥ/jirāḥ, notes rijāl jarḥā for the wounded, and records istijrāḥ as fault or corruption, citing a hadith use. Ibn Fāris (maqāyīs) formalizes two distinct roots under one form: kasb (ijtaraḥa = ʿamila wa kasaba, because one works with the jawāriḥ, the acquiring limbs) and shaqq al-jild (the literal wound); he also notes jarḥ al-shāhid, impugning a witness's testimony. Al-Rāghib links the two senses explicitly: the qadḥ (impugning) of a witness is called jarḥ by likeness to a wound, and jawāriḥ (hunting animals, also bodily organs) are so named either because they wound (yajraḥna) or because they earn (yaktasibna); ijtirāḥ al-ithm is modeled on jarāḥa as iqtirāf is modeled on qarḥ. Ibn Manẓūr (Lisān) and Lane confirm jaraḥa = to affect with a weapon, cut, or cleave, and record the metaphorical jaraḥahu bi-lisānihi, wounding with the tongue, i.e. defaming or impugning.
Draws on: cayn · sihah · Ibn Fāris · mufradat · lisan · Lane
- al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn
- al-Jawharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha
- al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt
- Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab
- Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon
Letters & soundIn al-Dabbāgh's letter-meanings, jīm at fatḥa signals prophethood or walāya (when context supports it) or else the good that never ceases;speculative
What the theorists of sound symbolism would say of these letters. Speculative by nature.
In al-Dabbāgh's letter-meanings, jīm at fatḥa signals prophethood or walāya (when context supports it) or else the good that never ceases; rāʾ at fatḥa signals all goods, outward and inward; ḥāʾ at fatḥa signals encompassing and inclusion of everything. Read together on this system, j-r-ḥ would gather 'the good that persists' with 'encompassing inclusion' — a reading that sits oddly against the word's ordinary sense of wounding, and is not something the theorists themselves apply to this specific root. Ibn ʿArabī's correlation of letters to the cosmic Breath (nafas) assigns jīm to the starless sphere (falak al-aṭlas) and rāʾ to the fifth heaven, cosmological rather than semantic correspondences. Mainstream historical linguistics treats all such letter-symbolism as speculative at best, with no demonstrated predictive value for word meaning.
Draws on: ibn-jinni-imsas · akbari198 · dabbagh
- al-Dabbāgh, letter-meanings at fatḥa (as transmitted)
- Ibn ʿArabī, letters and the cosmic spheres (Futūḥāt, table)
Root structureThe jīm-rāʾ nucleus sits among neighbors like jarz (cutting), jarsh (pounding coarsely), and jarw (spreading, said of the young of a dog) — all physical, effortful actions on a surface, which fits jarḥ's own sense of cutting into skin.uncertain
The two-letter nucleus (Ibn Fāris's own chapters) and the permutations of the letters (Ibn Jinnī).
The jīm-rāʾ nucleus sits among neighbors like jarz (cutting), jarsh (pounding coarsely), and jarw (spreading, said of the young of a dog) — all physical, effortful actions on a surface, which fits jarḥ's own sense of cutting into skin. Among the six permutations of j-r-ḥ, Ibn Fāris records ḥajr (confinement, prohibition, the encircling restraint of a stone) and ḥaraj (constriction, a thicket, tightness) as attested roots — permutations that read, juxtaposed only, as a kind of inversion of jarḥ's opening/breaching sense: jarḥ cuts open where ḥajr/ḥaraj hem in. Rajḥ (weight, preponderance) is the third attested permutation, unconnected in sense; raḥj is unattested. Ibn Jinnī's doctrine of greater derivation (al-ishtiqāq al-akbar) would licence noting this shared letter-set across jarḥ/ḥajr/ḥaraj as suggestive of a common substrate of 'boundary' (breached in one, enforced in the other), but this remains a juxtaposition, not an established etymology.
Draws on: maqayis-nucleus · maqayis-permutations · khasais
- Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lugha, root ج ر ح and permutations
- Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (link not verified)
Semitic kin & loanwordsNo confident Semitic cognate for jarḥ 'to wound' is attested in the standard comparative lexica;uncertain
Cognates in the sister languages, and whether the word was borrowed.
No confident Semitic cognate for jarḥ 'to wound' is attested in the standard comparative lexica; Hebrew and Aramaic use different roots for wounding (e.g. Hebrew pṣʿ, ḥbl). There is no basis here for treating jarḥ as a loanword; it presents as native triliteral Arabic vocabulary.
Draws on: no-confident-cognate
Quranic exegesisAt Q5:4, 'wa-mā ʿallamtum min al-jawāriḥ mukallibīn,' al-Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī read jawāriḥ as trained hunting animals — dogs, falcons and the like — taken by exegetes either from the sense 'they wound (their prey)' or 'they earn/acquire (for their owner),' following the two glosses already present in al-Rāghib.well attested
How the classical exegetes read the word in the Quran.
At Q5:4, 'wa-mā ʿallamtum min al-jawāriḥ mukallibīn,' al-Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī and al-Rāzī read jawāriḥ as trained hunting animals — dogs, falcons and the like — taken by exegetes either from the sense 'they wound (their prey)' or 'they earn/acquire (for their owner),' following the two glosses already present in al-Rāghib. At Q5:45, 'wa'l-jurūḥ qiṣāṣ,' the exegetes treat jurūḥ straightforwardly as the class of bodily wounds subject to the law of retaliation, extending the qiṣāṣ principle stated for life and limb. At Q45:21 (al-Jāthiya), 'alladhīna ijtaraḥū al-sayyiʾāt,' exegetes read ijtiraḥ as the active acquisition of evil deeds specifically through the limbs (jawāriḥ), reinforcing al-Rāghib's derivation of ijtirāḥ al-ithm from jarāḥa.
Akbarian readingIn Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses tajrīḥ in the sense familiar from ḥadīth-criticism (jarḥ wa taʿdīl) — impugning or faulting a claim — describing the angels as not stopping at mere tajrīḥ of Adam's claim but escalating their objection through further declarations of tasbīḥ and taqdīs.plausible
The word in Ibn ʿArabī's text and terminology.
In Faṣṣ Ādam, Ibn ʿArabī uses tajrīḥ in the sense familiar from ḥadīth-criticism (jarḥ wa taʿdīl) — impugning or faulting a claim — describing the angels as not stopping at mere tajrīḥ of Adam's claim but escalating their objection through further declarations of tasbīḥ and taqdīs. The usage is technical-juridical rather than mystical-terminological: jarḥ here names the act of discrediting a report or a claimant, applied to the angels' implicit critique of Adam's fitness for the vicegerency.
Draws on: fassAdam
- Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, Faṣṣ Ādam
Reference