Qur'an, as the first listener heard it
The Qur'an in the order it was revealed, read as the person who first heard it would have heard it, before fourteen centuries of scholarship settled what its words mean. Each sura is given whole, in plain English. The word-by-word evidence sits underneath, for anyone who wants to check.
al-ʿAlaq
Speak up. Do it in the name of the one who owns you, the one who shaped you. He shaped the human out of a clot of sticky blood. Speak up: the one who owns you is the noblest of stock and the most open-handed there is. He is the one who trained the human to the reed pen, who trained the human in what he did not have. And still, no: the human, once he has enough, goes over his banks like a wadi in flood, because he looks at himself and sees a man who needs no one. But the road leads back to the one who owns you. Look at that man, the one stopping a bondman from praying. What if the bondman is on the right road, or is telling people to keep their guard up? And what about the man who shouted 'lies' and turned his back? Does he not realise he was being watched? No: if he does not stop, he gets hauled by the hair at the front of his head, that lying, straying head. Let him shout for his circle of men. We will shout for the heavies. No: do not go along with him. Put your forehead on the ground, and come close.
This is not a sermon about God. It is a commission, given to one man, with an incident attached to show him what he is up against.
Read the whole sura, what it says, and every word with its sources
Coming next, in revelation order
| # | Sura | Period | Ready |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | al-Muddaththir (74) | Mecca I | 93% of words researched |
| 3 | al-Masad (111) | Mecca I | 93% of words researched |
| 4 | Quraysh (106) | Mecca I | 83% of words researched |
| 5 | al-Kawthar (108) | Mecca I | 85% of words researched |
| 6 | al-Humaza (104) | Mecca I | 84% of words researched |
| 7 | al-Māʿūn (107) | Mecca I | 91% of words researched |
| 8 | al-Takāthur (102) | Mecca I | 91% of words researched |
| 9 | al-Fīl (105) | Mecca I | 58% of words researched |
| 10 | al-Layl (92) | Mecca I | 73% of words researched |
| 11 | al-Balad (90) | Mecca I | 55% of words researched |
| 12 | al-Sharḥ (94) | Mecca I | 28% of words researched |
| 13 | al-Ḍuḥā (93) | Mecca I | 39% of words researched |
| 14 | al-Qadr (97) | Mecca I | 56% of words researched |
| 15 | al-Ṭāriq (86) | Mecca I | 39% of words researched |
| 16 | al-Shams (91) | Mecca I | 47% of words researched |
| 17 | ʿAbasa (80) | Mecca I | 45% of words researched |
| 18 | al-Qalam (68) | Mecca I | 39% of words researched |
| 19 | al-Aʿlā (87) | Mecca I | 56% of words researched |
| 20 | al-Tīn (95) | Mecca I | 36% of words researched |
176 of 1651 roots researched so far; every word in the Qur'an comes from one of them. 146 came back with tradition keeping the original sense, 23 drifted, 7 the evidence cannot settle.
How a word gets its meaning here
There was no Arabic dictionary in 610 CE. The first ones were written 150 to 700 years later by Muslim scholars, inside the tradition, so they record what words came to mean, not what they meant. To get behind them, each root is looked up in sentences that could not have been shaped by later theology, ranked by how clean they are:
- 1. Inscriptions
- Short texts Arabs carved on rock in the centuries before Islam. Dated, physical, never edited. About 38,000 are indexed here.
- 2. Sister languages
- The same root in Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic and Ge'ez, from their own old dictionaries. Independent of Islam entirely.
- 3. Pre-Islamic speech
- Poems from the 500s about camels, raids, wine and tents, used the way a dictionary quotes a sentence: if a poet calls the owner of a herd its rabb, we learn that rabb meant owner. Written before the Qur'an, so they cannot read theology into it. No commentary and no interpretation of the Qur'an is used.
- 4. The Qur'an's own usage
- Every place the word occurs, grouped by how it is used.
- 5. Later dictionaries
- Lisan al-Arab (1311 CE), used only to record what the word became, never as proof of what it was.
A claim that the traditional meaning drifted needs at least two independent witnesses from the first three tiers. "Tradition kept the sense" is a valid result and is reported as such. Every meaning on this site carries the ID of the line it rests on, and a checker rejects any citation that does not exist.
Every root researched so far (176)
With the verdict on the later tradition, in the order each root first appears in revelation.
| Root | What it meant in 610 | Tradition | Conf. |
|---|---|---|---|
| قرأ q-r-ʾ | to call out, to read aloud to hearers (a letter, a record, a scripture); beside it a concrete Arabic sense 'to gather and hold together' (a womb holding a fetus) | partial drift | high |
| سمو s-m-w | two distinct old words filed by the grammarians under one root: samāʾ, the sky-roof over the tents from which rain comes; and ism, the name (a biradical Semitic word šm) | kept | medium |
| ربب r-b-b | rabb: the one who owns, keeps and provides for something - the master of a house, herd or slave, the king of a people, the god of a shrine; always 'rabb of X', never a name on its own | partial drift | high |
| خلق kh-l-q | to measure off and shape a thing from material, as a tanner cuts a hide or a potter forms clay; hence to form, to make; the noun khalq is the build or make of a body, and khuluq the way a person is made (character) | partial drift | high |
| أنس ʾ-n-s | the human kind, seen as the visible, sociable, mortal beings (ins, insān, nās) as opposed to the hidden jinn; from the same root, to be at ease with, to make out a friendly presence from afar | kept | high |
| علق ʿ-l-q | to cling, hang on, stick to; the noun ʿalaq is clinging blood - the dark clotted blood that sticks to clothes and spears - and ʿalaqa is a clot of it, or a leech | kept | high |
| كرم k-r-m | karīm: of noble stock, high-bred - said of a man, a horse, a camel, a tree, a meal - and therefore open-handed and honourable; to honour someone (akrama) is to treat him as such stock deserves | partial drift | high |
| علم ʿ-l-m | to know a thing by its mark: ʿalam is a landmark, a banner, a distinguishing sign; ʿalima is to have come to know by evidence or experience; ʿallama is to show someone the marks, to train him in a skill; a separate loan, ʿālam 'the age, the world', gives al-ʿālamīn 'the peoples of the world' | partial drift | high |
| قلم q-l-m | qalam: the reed cut and trimmed to a point for writing; anything pared to a point (a lot-arrow, a clipped nail); the tool of the scribe | partial drift | medium |
| طغي ṭ-gh-y | go over the limit - water overflowing its banks, a beast bellowing, a man overstepping his place; the Aramaic cousin is 'wander off, stray, err' | kept | medium |
| رأي r-ʾ-y | to see with the eyes; from that, to have seen and so to judge (raʾy, opinion), to be shown (dream, sign), and to be seen by others (show, display) | kept | high |
| غني gh-n-y | have enough - be in plenty, free of want; hence 'avail, be of use' (tughnī ʿan) and 'dwell in plenty'; a separate homonym is 'sing' | kept | high |
| رجع r-j-ʿ | come back to where one set out from: a rider returning from the desert to camp, a company coming home from a raid; then anything that goes out and comes back (a gaze, an echo, rain, a divorced pair) | kept | high |
| نهي n-h-y | bring to a stop - hold someone back from a thing (nahā), come to one's end-point and cease (intahā); the far end where a thing stops (muntahā); the restraining sense in a man (nuhā) | kept | medium |
| عبد ʿ-b-d | be someone's bondman - the ʿabd is the owned man who labours for a master; to ʿabada a god is to be his bondman, serve him as an owned man serves; ʿibāda is that service | partial drift | medium |
| صلو ṣ-l-w | the bending-toward: Aramaic ṣallī 'pray' from a root meaning 'incline, lean'; ṣalāt is the set prayer-rite of the scripture-people, and ṣallā ʿalā is 'to call down good on someone' | kept | high |
| كون k-w-n | be, come to be, happen - the plain Semitic verb of being and becoming; makān is the place where a thing is, and by extension a man's standing | kept | high |
| هدي h-d-y | lead along the way - the guide walks in front and the caravan, the herd, the bride, the sacrificial beast, the gift are 'led' to where they are going; to find the way is to be led | kept | high |
| أمر ʾ-m-r | a word said with weight: in the sister languages plainly 'say', in Arabic 'say that something be done' (command) and, as a noun, 'the matter' such a word is about - the business at hand, what is decided, what then happens | kept | high |
| وقي w-q-y | shield - keep something off someone; ittaqā is to put a shield between yourself and a harm, and taqwā is that watchfulness, the wolf's wariness, the slave's care not to rouse his master | kept | high |
| كذب k-dh-b | prove false, fail to hold - a stream that fails, a promise that does not come, a report that is not so; to kadhdhaba is to declare a thing false, give it the lie | kept | high |
| ولي w-l-y | be next to - the one who stands beside you and so is bound to you (mawlā, walī: kinsman, patron, client, ally); to turn oneself toward or away (tawallā, wallā); the nearer and so the more entitled (awlā) | kept | high |
| أله ʾ-l-h | ilāh: a god, any being one calls on and serves (plural āliha); Allāh: 'the god', the high god already invoked and sworn by in the Hijaz before 610 | kept | high |
| سفع s-f-ʿ | a blow or grab at the head: to seize by the forelock and haul; also to scorch and blacken (a face, hearthstones) - both are marks left on the front of the head | unknown | low |
| نصي n-ṣ-y | the forelock: the tuft of hair at the front of the head of a horse or a man; to seize someone by it is to have him wholly in hand, and two men who grab each other's forelocks are fighting | kept | high |
| خطأ ḫ-ṭ-ʾ | miss the mark: an arrow that misses, a rain-cloud that misses its season, death that misses a man - and from that, to go wrong, to do wrong, to sin | kept | high |
| دعو d-ʿ-w | call out to someone - by name, for help, to come - and so call upon a god; the answer (or silence) is the test of the call | kept | high |
| ندي n-d-y | to call out loud to someone at a distance so that the voice carries (nādā); and the nādī / nadī, the open-air sitting of the men of a tribe where a call is answered and guests are fed | kept | high |
| زبن z-b-n | shove away with force - the she-camel kicking back the man who milks her; zabāniya = the shovers, a gang of strong-arm men who push people back | partial drift | medium |
| طوع ṭ-w-ʿ | to yield, give way, be at someone's disposal without resistance: pasture that offers itself to the grazing beast, wind that a sail can use, a man who goes along with a chief; the opposite of karh, being forced | kept | medium |
| سجد s-j-d | bow down to the ground before someone - the body's act of homage to a king or a god; masjid = the place where that is done | kept | high |
| قرب q-r-b | to be near, come close, in space, in time and in blood: the enemy at close hand, the kinsman, the mare kept by the tent; and the thing brought close to a god or a king, an offering (qurbān) or a favourite (muqarrab) | kept | high |
| أيي ʾ-y-y | āya: a visible mark that tells you something - the trace of a camp, a carved sign on a rock, a token that proves a claim; and ʾayy: the pointing word 'which? O you!' (a separate use of the same letters) | partial drift | medium |
| دثر d-ṯ-r | be covered over: a man wrapped in his outer cloak (dithār) against the cold or for sleep; a campsite buried by blown sand until its traces are gone | unknown | low |
| قوم q-w-m | to stand: get up on one's feet, stand firm, stand still; to set a thing upright and keep it standing; and the qawm, the body of men who stand together as one group | kept | high |
| نذر n-ḏ-r | two things bound together by the idea of making something known and binding: to vow, lay a duty on oneself before a god (nadhara, nadhr); and to give notice of danger, to warn someone of what is coming (andhara, nadhīr) | kept | high |
| كبر k-b-r | to be big: large in size, much in amount, advanced in years, high in rank; and the two things that follow from bigness, being heavy on someone (kabura ʿalayhi) and thinking oneself big (kibr, istakbara) | kept | high |
| ثوب ṯ-w-b | to come back to where one was: water returning to the well, a man returning after going, and so what comes back to a person for what he did (requital); beside it, the garment (ṯawb) as a separate everyday noun of the same root | kept | high |
| طهر ṭ-h-r | to be clean in the ritual sense: the body free of blood, semen and excrement, the clothes and the sacred place free of filth, so that one may approach a god; the state a woman is in when her monthly bleeding is over | kept | high |
| رجز r-j-z | a shaking or trembling: in Arabic the camel's quivering hindquarters and the jolting chant that goes with a camel's gait; in Hebrew and Aramaic the same shaking turned inward and upward, agitation and then wrath, above all the wrath of God that comes down on people | partial drift | medium |
| هجر h-j-r | to cut oneself off: to leave a person, a place or a company and not go back; between two people, the estrangement that ends a bond; and hājara, to leave one's own people and land for another | partial drift | high |
| منن m-n-n | to cut, wear down, exhaust: a rope frayed through, a camel worn out by travel, the manūn that cuts every life; and, as a separate line, to do someone a kindness (manna ʿalayhi), which turns bad when the giver keeps reminding the receiver of it | kept | medium |
| كثر k-ṯ-r | be many, be much: a large count of people, animals, water or goods, the opposite of qilla (fewness) | kept | high |
| صبر ṣ-b-r | to hold fast in place: to keep oneself (or another) held where one is, under blows, without breaking or running; a fighter's word before it was a believer's | kept | medium |
| نقر n-q-r | peck, bore, chisel: a bird's beak or a mason's pick striking a hard surface and leaving a small hollow | kept | high |
| يوم y-w-m | a day: the span from sunrise to sunset, and by extension the day on which a decisive thing happened or will happen (a battle, a reckoning) | kept | high |
| عسر ʿ-s-r | hard to handle: a camel that will not be led, a bone that will not come out of the throat, a thing that resists; then hardship, tight straits, the opposite of yusr | kept | high |
| كفر k-f-r | cover a thing over so that it is not seen; from that, refuse to acknowledge a benefit or a claim - be ungrateful, disown, deny | partial drift | high |
| غير ġ-y-r | other, otherwise, not-this: the particle ghayr that marks a thing as different from or lacking what is named; the verb ghayyara 'make other, alter'; and a second family ghāra/aghāra 'go out on a foray, bring back provisions, raid' | kept | high |
| يسر y-s-r | soft, pliant, tractable: a horse or camel that yields to the hand, a birth that comes easily; then ease, the opposite of ʿusr; and maysir, the arrow-game in which a slaughtered camel is shared out | kept | high |
| وذر w-ḏ-r | let be, leave alone, leave behind: the defective verb yadharu / dhar, used only in the imperfect and imperative | kept | medium |
| وحد w-ḥ-d | be alone, be one: a man by himself in the desert, a single beast, one and not two | kept | high |
| جعل j-ʿ-l | to put a thing somewhere or into some state: set it down, set it as, set it up to be; the everyday verb of placing and appointing, from a water-skin strap on a shoulder to a man made chief | kept | high |
| مول m-w-l | māl: what a man owns and can drive or count - for the nomad his herds, for the townsman his goods; possessions, wealth | kept | medium |
| مدد m-d-d | stretch out, extend - a hand, a rope, a shadow, a stretch of time; and, by stretching a cord, to measure; amadda = stretch supplies out to someone, reinforce | kept | high |
| بني b-n-y | to build, set stone on stone; and the son (ibn, pl. banūn/banī), the one a house is built up through, so that 'the sons of X' names a lineage as one built thing | kept | high |
| شهد š-h-d | to be there and see it: to be present at an event (a battle, a drinking bout, a birth) and therefore able to say what happened; the witness is the one who was on the spot | partial drift | high |
| مهد m-h-d | smooth a place flat and soft to lie on - make a bed; the bed itself (an infant's cradle, a spread mattress, the level ground) | kept | medium |
| طمع ṭ-m-ʿ | reach in hope toward something not yet in hand - to hope for, expect, set one's heart on; the opposite of giving up (yaʾs) | kept | medium |
| زيد z-y-d | to be or make more: a quantity going up past its previous mark, the extra beyond a count or a measure; an ordinary word of counting, trade and growth | kept | high |
| عند ʿ-n-d | ʿinda: 'at the side of, in the keeping of' - a place-word for being in someone's presence, house or custody, and so 'in someone's reckoning'; ʿanīd: one who keeps apart, turns aside from the path (the camel that will not stay with the herd) | kept | high |
| رهق r-h-q | to come up on and close over someone: a pursuer catching up, a shadow or a burden overtaking and covering a person; the noun rahaq is the pressing thing that overtakes | unknown | low |
| صعد ṣ-ʿ-d | go up by steps - climb a slope, a mountain path, a ladder; the hard ascent itself (ṣaʿūd); the top surface of the ground (ṣaʿīd) | kept | high |
| فكر f-k-r | turn a matter over in the mind - consider, reflect, work something out; in the cognate languages a physical clasping and knotting that Arabic no longer shows | kept | medium |
| قدر q-d-r | cut a thing to its size - measure it out, apportion it; from that, to have the measure of a thing (be able), and the measure itself (a ration, a length, a rank, an appointed amount); qidr = the cooking pot | partial drift | high |
| قتل q-t-l | kill a person; and, in the reciprocal form, fight - the two senses lie so close that one tribe 'killing' another means the two went to war | kept | high |
| كيف k-y-f | 'how?' - the question of manner and condition; in the Qur'an mostly a pointing word, 'look how', that makes the hearer picture an outcome or an act of God, and a reproach, 'how can you' | kept | high |
| نظر n-ẓ-r | keep watch - look at something attentively and stay looking; from the watcher's post come both 'look, consider' and 'wait, give time' (anẓara = let someone wait, grant respite) | kept | high |
| عبس ʿ-b-s | the face contracting and going hard: to knit the brows and scowl; behind it a picture of something drying and caking up (the crust that dries on a camel's tail) | kept | medium |
| بسر b-s-r | unripe, before its time: the hard green date (busr), and from the same sourness the face that puckers and looks down on someone, the scowl | kept | medium |
| دبر d-b-r | the back, the rear side of a thing or a body; hence to turn one's back and go off, the tail-end of a day or a people, and (in a separate Aramaic-shaped use) to drive and manage from behind | kept | high |
| قول q-w-l | to put something into the voice: to say it out loud so that it is heard; the qawl is the thing said, standing for the speaker and answerable to challenge. The Semitic base is 'voice, sound'. | kept | high |
| سحر s-ḥ-r | two old poles: (1) saḥar, the dark last stretch of night before dawn; (2) siḥr, the thing that takes hold of the eye and turns a thing away from what it really is - paired with 'lie' and located in a woman's glance long before it meant a sorcerer's craft | partial drift | medium |
| أثر ʾ-ṯ-r | the track a foot or hoof leaves on the ground, and by extension any mark left behind by someone who has passed: the thing you find and follow, or find and weep over | kept | high |
| بشر b-š-r | the outer skin of a body: bashara is the surface where the hair grows, bashar is the skin-and-flesh creature (a mortal human), and bashshara is to make that surface brighten with news that gladdens | kept | high |
| صلي ṣ-l-y | to roast at a fire: meat held to the coals, a man warming himself at a hearth; the fire's heat on a body | kept | high |
| دري d-r-y | to know a thing by having found it out - almost always heard in the negative, 'mā adrī', I cannot tell which of two things is the case | kept | medium |
| بقي b-q-y | to be left over when the rest is gone: the wine not finished, the remnant of a beaten tribe, the talk that outlasts a man's wealth - and, in the causative, to leave something (or someone) standing instead of consuming it | kept | high |
| لوح l-w-ḥ | a broad flat plank or slab: a board of wood, the flat bone of a camel's flank, a writing board; and (verb) to show flat and bright, to gleam, to scorch the surface | kept | high |
| تسع t-s-ʿ | the number nine: a plain counting word, common to every Semitic language, used for sons, camels, signs, coins - and for 'ninety-nine' as the number one short of a round hundred | kept | high |
| عشر ʿ-š-r | ten; and the close kin-group one lives among (ʿašīr, ʿašīra, maʿšar), with the ten-month pregnant she-camel (ʿišār) as the herd's most prized animals | kept | high |
| صحب ṣ-ḥ-b | the one who goes along with you: a road-companion, and from there the man who 'goes with' a thing and so holds it - ṣāḥib al-ʿiyāb, the trader with the saddlebags; ṣāḥib ghanam, the man with the sheep | kept | high |
| نور n-w-r | fire and the light it throws: one root for the flame (nār) and for the brightness that lets you see (nūr); to kindle, to give light | kept | high |
| ملك m-l-k | to have a thing in one's hand and at one's disposal: to own it, to hold it, to rule it; the malik is the man who holds a people, the mulk is the holding itself. The word malak 'angel' is filed under the same letters but is a different word. | kept | high |
| عدد ʿ-d-d | to count off one by one: tally souls, days, coins, deeds; from it, the counted number, the fixed term of days, and (form IV) to have a stock counted and ready | kept | high |
| فتن f-t-n | to put through the fire to find out what a thing is: the smelter's test of gold and silver; hence any ordeal that shows what a person is made of, including burning, persecution and the pull of desire | partial drift | high |
| يقن y-q-n | the sure report: news or knowledge you can act on because it is settled, as opposed to ẓann, surmise | kept | high |
| أتي ʾ-t-y | to come, arrive: of a man returning from Palmyra or the inner desert, of a season, a cold spell or a disease that 'came' in a given year; with bi- 'come with' = bring; and the causative ātā 'make come to someone' = give | kept | high |
| كتب k-t-b | to set marks on a surface - write; kitāb is the written thing: a letter carried to someone, a register or record kept for later, a decree, and (in Jewish and Christian speech) the Scripture | kept | high |
| أمن ʾ-m-n | to be safe from fear; the state of a watering-place or a town where nothing will be taken from you, and of a man you can hand a thing to - the amīn, the confidant or guard - so that āmana bi- is to put yourself and what you value in someone's keeping | partial drift | medium |
| ريب r-y-b | the unsettling thing: what agitates the mind and will not let it rest - the blows of fate (rayb al-manūn, rayb az-zamān) from outside, and from inside the nagging suspicion that something is wrong (rība), which one either gives no ground for or falls into (irtāba) | partial drift | medium |
| قلب q-l-b | to turn a thing over, flip it from one face to the other; qalb is the heart - the organ inside the chest that a spear can reach, that throbs, and that a poet treats as the seat of courage, love and knowing | kept | medium |
| مرض m-r-ḍ | to be sick, weak, wasting - of a person or an animal; marīḍ is the sick man whom people visit, maraḍ is the sickness itself | kept | high |
| رود r-w-d | to go to and fro seeking - a beast roaming for pasture, a scout ranging ahead for grass and water; from it ʾarāda 'to set oneself after a thing, want, be after', rāwada 'to keep coming at someone to win them over', and ruwaydan 'gently, at a walking pace' | kept | medium |
| مثل m-th-l | a likeness - one thing standing as the same as another; mithl is 'the like of', 'an equal', and mathal is a likeness set up in words: a comparison, an example held up, a saying that makes a truth visible | kept | high |
| ضلل ḍ-l-l | to go astray, be lost - a camel wandered off, a person who has missed the track, and by extension one who has vanished from his people, including the dead; ʾaḍalla is to let or make a thing get lost | kept | high |
| شيأ sh-y-ʾ | shāʾa: to want, to will a thing into being; shayʾ: a thing, whatever can be wanted, named or counted - the most general noun in the language | kept | medium |
| جند j-n-d | jund, junūd: a body of armed men gathered under a leader - an army, a host; in the poets already used of the forces of a king and of the wind and dark as 'hosts' | kept | medium |
| ذكر dh-k-r | to bring to mind and to mouth: remember, call to mind, name, mention; dhikr is the mention of someone - a memory, a name spoken, renown; dhakar is the male | kept | high |
| قمر q-m-r | qamar: the moon - the lit disc of the night, the light travellers walk by, the body whose stations count the months; the family sense behind it in Semitic is 'round, arched, vaulted', and in Arabic the adjective aqmar is 'whitish' | kept | high |
| ليل l-y-l | the night: the dark stretch between sunset and dawn, felt as a thing that comes down and covers, and counted one by one as the unit of time (layla = one night) | kept | high |
| صبح ṣ-b-ḥ | the morning: first light after the night; and, from it, aṣbaḥa 'to enter the morning', which for the poets and the Qur'an means 'to wake up and find oneself in a new state', and ṣabāḥ, the dawn raid and its alarm-cry | kept | high |
| سفر s-f-r | three old senses under one root: (1) a piece of writing, an inscription, a scribe; (2) the journey away from the settlement; (3) to uncover, brighten (the dawn, a face) | kept | high |
| أحد ʾ-ḥ-d | one: a single one, one out of a group, and in a negative sentence 'anyone, no one'; the feminine iḥdā 'one of (two or more)', with the old idiom 'one of the great ones' for a calamity | partial drift | high |
| قدم q-d-m | in front, ahead: the foot that goes first (qadam), to go forward or push forward (qadima, aqdama, taqaddama), to send a thing on ahead so it waits for you (qaddama), and, of what has already gone ahead in time, old (qadīm) | partial drift | high |
| أخر ʾ-kh-r | behind, after: what comes later or stands at the rear (ākhir = last, end; ukhrā/ākhar = the other one, the next one; akhkhara = put off, delay) | partial drift | high |
| كلل k-l-l | the whole, every part of it: kull 'all, every, each', a word that gathers a set into one; also kalāla, the kin left when the direct line (parent, child) is missing, and kall, a dead-weight dependent | kept | high |
| نفس n-f-s | the breathing self: a person as a living, breathing body, the life that can be taken or ransomed, the 'oneself' of reflexive speech, and the inner wanting that self has; also, in the north, the monument that stands for the dead person | kept | high |
| كسب k-s-b | to get for oneself by one's own effort: to earn, acquire, bring in (wealth, praise, blame), and so to have to one's account whatever one's hands have brought in | kept | medium |
| رهن r-h-n | a pledge: a thing or a person handed over and held as security until a debt is paid, and so any person who is 'held' by a debt, by fate, by the grave | kept | high |
| يمن y-m-n | the right hand and the right side: the hand that eats, gives, strikes and is raised to swear, so that yamīn is also the oath sworn on it, and the right-hand side is the lucky side and the south | kept | high |
| جنن j-n-n | to cover and hide from sight: the night that covers a man, the shield that covers a body, the orchard whose trees cover the ground, the unseen beings of the waste, the unborn hidden in the womb, and the mind covered over in madness - one picture, many things under it | kept | high |
| سأل s-ʾ-l | to ask: put a question to someone, or put a request to someone - the beggar at the tent, the petitioner before a god, the man asking after a woman's people - and, in the passive, to be the one who has to answer | kept | high |
| جرم j-r-m | to cut off: a year cut off and complete, a palm-cluster cut, and, on the social side, a cut made against someone - a wound or wrong committed - so that the mujrim is the man who made the cut | kept | high |
| سلك s-l-k | to pass along or through: a man taking a track between two places, a thread passed through pearls, a hand put into a pocket - and causatively, to make something go in or along | kept | high |
| طعم ṭ-ʿ-m | to take food into the mouth: to taste and to eat; ṭaʿām is whatever is eaten, and aṭʿama is to put food in front of someone, the host's and the herdsman's act | kept | high |
| سكن s-k-n | to come to rest in a place: to settle, dwell, stop moving; hence a dwelling (maskan), a resting thing or time (sakan), a stillness sent down (sakīna), and the man who has come to a standstill for want of means (miskīn) | kept | high |
| خوض kh-w-ḍ | to wade in: to walk into water and stir it up, and by the same picture to plunge into battle, blood, death, or (in the Qurʾan) into talk | kept | medium |
| شفع š-f-ʿ | to make a pair of: add a second to a single thing - a second calf beside the first, a second arrow beside the first, a second man who stands beside you when you plead your case | kept | high |
| عرض ʿ-r-ḍ | the broad side: breadth as against length, and everything done with a broad side - a cloud-bank showing across the horizon, goods laid out, a thing set crosswise before someone, a man turning his side away | kept | high |
| حمر ḥ-m-r | two things under one root: the donkey (ḥimār), the pan-Semitic name of the load-carrying ass; and the colour red (aḥmar, ḥumr) | kept | high |
| صحف ṣ-ḥ-f | a flat leaf: a sheet of skin or leaf written on (ṣaḥīfa, pl. ṣuḥuf), and by the same shape a flat dish (ṣaḥfa, pl. ṣiḥāf) | kept | medium |
| خوف ḫ-w-f | fear as the felt expectation of harm from something outside you - a raider, a hunter, a drought, a punishment, a shaming word - the opposite of being secure (amn) | kept | high |
| أهل ʾ-h-l | the people of one tent: a man's household and near kin, and by the same logic the people who belong to a place, a thing or a quality | kept | high |
| غفر gh-f-r | to cover a thing over so that it no longer shows; of a fault, to cover it and let it go - the chief's act of overlooking a kinsman's slip | kept | high |
| تبب t-b-b | to be lost, to come to nothing: a man gone astray from his road, a bargain whose hands have nothing to show; the curse-word for that state | kept | medium |
| يدي y-d-y | the hand, from fingertips to wrist; by extension what the hand does and holds - grip, power, deed, gift, and the space in front of a person (between the two hands) | kept | high |
| أبو ʾ-b-w | father: the man one is born of, mourned and cared for; in the plural, the line of fathers whose way a tribe inherits; as a title (abu X), the man defined by what he has | kept | high |
| لهب l-h-b | the flame itself: the bright, smokeless tongue of a fire, and by extension its heat and glare | kept | high |
| حمل ḥ-m-l | to take a load onto oneself and carry it - a pack on a camel, a child in the womb, a bier, a debt or a wrong taken on for another | kept | high |
| حطب ḥ-ṭ-b | to cut and gather firewood; the gathered wood itself, the fuel a fire eats | kept | high |
| جيد j-y-d | the neck: in Arabic the graceful front of the neck where a woman or a gazelle wears her ornaments; in the older Semitic the sinew or tendon that runs through it | kept | high |
| حبل ḥ-b-l | a rope: the twisted cord that ties, hauls, snares and measures; and from the tie, the bond of protection or alliance between people | kept | high |
| مسد m-s-d | a rope twisted tight from palm fibre (or hair, hide strips): the working rope of the well-pulley and the load | kept | medium |
| ألف ʾ-l-f | two things that go together: alf 'a thousand' (the full count) and ilf 'the familiar companion, the habit one keeps to'; from the second, to join hearts or clouds together | kept | high |
| قرش q-r-sh | Quraysh: the proper name of the Meccan tribe that kept the House; as a common root, to gather and press together (Syriac 'to gather', Hebrew 'to congeal, become solid') | kept | medium |
| رحل r-ḥ-l | the raḥl, the camel's riding-saddle with its frame and gear; from strapping it on, to set out, and riḥla, the journey | kept | high |
| شتو sh-t-w | winter: the cold, lean season a herding people had to sit out, when rain fails, pasture thins and the tent goes hungry; to winter somewhere | kept | high |
| صيف ṣ-y-f | ṣayf: the warm season that follows the spring rains, with its own late rains and heat, the time the herds are moved to summer pasture; to pass that season somewhere | partial drift | medium |
| نحر n-ḥ-r | the naḥr, the base of the throat at the top of the chest, and the act of stabbing a camel there to kill it: the host's slaughter | kept | high |
| شنأ š-n-ʾ | to hate, to be someone's enemy; the šāniʾ is the man who hates you, the enemy on the raid-road | kept | high |
| بتر b-t-r | to cut off short, dock (a tail, a piece); al-abtar is the docked one, the animal with its tail cut, the thing with no continuation | kept | medium |
| همز h-m-z | to jab, prod, squeeze: the poke of a goad in a donkey's flank, a lion's thrust; then the man who jabs at people with words | kept | medium |
| لمز l-m-z | to sneer at someone with a look, a twitch of the lip and a muttered word: to find fault in a small, cutting, half-hidden way | unknown | medium |
| نبذ n-b-ḏ | to fling a thing away from the hand, in front of you or behind you: a handful of dust, a live coal, a body into the sea, a pact over the shoulder | kept | medium |
| حطم ḥ-ṭ-m | to crush a dry, brittle thing to fragments: a skull under a sword, stubble under hooves, a berry underfoot; ḥuṭām is the broken dry litter that is left | kept | medium |
| وقد w-q-d | to burn, to kindle: a fire lit and fed; waqūd is the fuel (firewood) that feeds it | kept | high |
| طلع ṭ-l-ʿ | to come up into view: the sun, moon, dawn or stars rising over the horizon; a raiding party appearing over the rise; and from that, to get up high enough to see, to come upon and catch sight of | kept | high |
| فأد f-ʾ-d | the fuʾād: the heart as a living organ inside the chest, the thing a spear reaches through the mail, that flies with fright, burns with grief, leans toward a beloved, and sees and knows; plural afʾida | kept | medium |
| وصد w-ṣ-d | a closing-in: the waṣīd is the forecourt or threshold of a dwelling, the enclosed space at its mouth; the verb awṣada is to shut a door or clamp a lid down, so muʾṣada is 'shut down over' | unknown | low |
| عمد ʿ-m-d | a thing set upright that holds weight: the tent-pole, the pillar (ʿimād, ʿamad); and, from setting oneself straight at something, ʿamd 'on purpose', the opposite of a mistake | kept | high |
| دعع d-ʿ-ʿ | to shove someone away roughly with the hand - a physical push, not a word | unknown | medium |
| يتم y-t-m | a child whose father is dead: the one in the camp with no man to push for him, so the one who gets pushed | kept | high |
| حضض ḥ-ḍ-ḍ | to urge someone on to an act, the way a driver urges a beast forward: pressing another person to do a thing | kept | medium |
| سهو s-h-w | to drift: the mind slack and gone elsewhere, so that a thing in front of you is let slip | unknown | low |
| منع m-n-ʿ | to put yourself between a person and a thing: withhold the thing from him, or keep him from harm | kept | high |
| عون ʿ-w-n | backing: the extra hand, body or means that lets a man carry what he could not carry alone | kept | high |
| لهو l-h-w | pleasant pastime that draws a man off his business: women, wine, song, the easy hours | kept | high |
| زور z-w-r | to lean off the straight line: turn aside toward a place (visit), a body bent off true (the chest), speech bent off the truth (lie) | kept | high |
| قبر q-b-r | to put a dead body into the ground and cover it; the grave that results | kept | high |
| عين ʿ-y-n | the eye in a face, and the eye of the ground where water comes up: one word for the two things that look out at you, the seeing organ and the spring | kept | high |
| نعم n-ʿ-m | ease and plenty in a herding life: the grazing beasts a man owns, the soft living they give, and the favour done to him that he must remember and repay | kept | high |
| فعل f-ʿ-l | to do or make something: the all-purpose verb for an act, with a noun fiʿāl for the deeds a man is judged by | kept | high |
| فيل f-y-l | the elephant: a foreign war-beast known by report and by one remembered invasion | kept | medium |
| رسل r-s-l | to send off, let go; rasūl = the man you send with words to deliver (balligh) to someone; risāla = the words he carries | kept | medium |
| عصف ʿ-ṣ-f | of wind: to blow hard and tear along (ʿāṣif, a gale; ʿaṣf, the violent blowing); and, as a noun, the dry leaf and husk stripped off a grain stalk - the thing a gale leaves behind | kept | medium |
| غشو gh-sh-w | to come over and cover: a wave over a ship, smoke over a face, a coat of mail over the fingers, sleep or death over a man - and, from the other side, a person 'coming over' a place: a warrior into the fray, a guest to the host's bowl | kept | medium |
| جلو j-l-w | to clear away what covers: darkness clearing off the horizon, a blade polished bright, a people cleared out of their land - one verb for uncovering and for banishment | kept | high |
| أنث ʾ-n-th | the female of any living kind, human or animal, always heard against dhakar 'male': the mare, the she-camel, the ant, the girl-child | kept | high |
| شتت sh-t-t | scattered, broken apart, gone in different directions: splinters of a shaft, maidens running every way, a tribe's affairs pulled apart; the opposite of gathered (jamaʿa) | kept | high |
| بخل b-kh-l | to hold back what one has when others have a claim on it: the miser's closed hand, the opposite of jūd (open-handed giving) | kept | high |
| ردي r-d-y | to go headlong: a body (horse, raider, beast, man) rushing or tumbling down; causative ardā = bring down, destroy; hence 'perish, ruin' | kept | high |
| لظي l-ẓ-y | the flaring-up of a fire: flame leaping from embers; talaẓẓā = to blaze up | kept | high |
| شقو sh-q-w | to toil and suffer hardship, to be worn down and have no ease: the standing opposite of saʿd (fortune, ease) | kept | medium |
| جنب j-n-b | the side: the flank of a body, the side of a place; from it, to put or keep to one side (avoid, keep away), and the one who stands aside (stranger, outsider) | kept | high |
| زكو z-k-w | to be clean and sound: in Aramaic 'innocent, acquitted, in the clear'; in Arabic 'wholesome, thriving, goodly'; zakāt = the state of being clean and sound, and what is given to become so | partial drift | medium |
All 114 suras, in the order they were revealed
| # | Sura | Period | Roots ready | Verses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | al-ʿAlaq (96) | Mecca I | 32/32 | 19/19 |
| 2 | al-Muddaththir (74) | Mecca I | 102/109 | 0/56 |
| 3 | al-Masad (111) | Mecca I | 14/15 | 0/5 |
| 4 | Quraysh (106) | Mecca I | 10/12 | 0/4 |
| 5 | al-Kawthar (108) | Mecca I | 6/7 | 0/3 |
| 6 | al-Humaza (104) | Mecca I | 16/19 | 0/9 |
| 7 | al-Māʿūn (107) | Mecca I | 11/12 | 0/7 |
| 8 | al-Takāthur (102) | Mecca I | 11/12 | 0/8 |
| 9 | al-Fīl (105) | Mecca I | 10/17 | 0/5 |
| 10 | al-Layl (92) | Mecca I | 30/41 | 0/21 |
| 11 | al-Balad (90) | Mecca I | 25/45 | 0/20 |
| 12 | al-Sharḥ (94) | Mecca I | 4/14 | 0/8 |
| 13 | al-Ḍuḥā (93) | Mecca I | 9/23 | 0/11 |
| 14 | al-Qadr (97) | Mecca I | 9/16 | 0/5 |
| 15 | al-Ṭāriq (86) | Mecca I | 13/33 | 0/17 |
| 16 | al-Shams (91) | Mecca I | 17/36 | 0/15 |
| 17 | ʿAbasa (80) | Mecca I | 32/71 | 0/42 |
| 18 | al-Qalam (68) | Mecca I | 49/123 | 0/52 |
| 19 | al-Aʿlā (87) | Mecca I | 23/41 | 0/19 |
| 20 | al-Tīn (95) | Mecca I | 8/22 | 0/8 |
| 21 | al-ʿAṣr (103) | Mecca I | 3/9 | 0/3 |
| 22 | al-Burūj (85) | Mecca I | 25/53 | 0/22 |
| 23 | al-Muzzammil (73) | Mecca I | 39/91 | 0/20 |
| 24 | al-Qāriʿa (101) | Mecca I | 5/19 | 0/11 |
| 25 | al-Zalzala (99) | Mecca I | 6/18 | 0/8 |
| 26 | al-Infiṭār (82) | Mecca I | 22/38 | 0/19 |
| 27 | al-Takwīr (81) | Mecca I | 24/59 | 0/29 |
| 28 | al-Najm (53) | Mecca I | 43/121 | 0/62 |
| 29 | al-Inshiqāq (84) | Mecca I | 26/53 | 0/25 |
| 30 | al-ʿĀdiyāt (100) | Mecca I | 8/24 | 0/11 |
| 31 | al-Nāziʿāt (79) | Mecca I | 34/93 | 0/46 |
| 32 | al-Mursalāt (77) | Mecca I | 24/80 | 0/50 |
| 33 | al-Nabaʾ (78) | Mecca I | 30/100 | 0/40 |
| 34 | al-Ghāshiya (88) | Mecca I | 19/53 | 0/26 |
| 35 | al-Fajr (89) | Mecca I | 32/65 | 0/30 |
| 36 | al-Qiyāma (75) | Mecca I | 27/73 | 0/40 |
| 37 | al-Muṭaffifīn (83) | Mecca I | 30/68 | 0/36 |
| 38 | al-Ḥāqqa (69) | Mecca I | 40/114 | 0/52 |
| 39 | al-Dhāriyāt (51) | Mecca I | 61/141 | 0/60 |
| 40 | al-Ṭūr (52) | Mecca I | 49/133 | 0/49 |
| 41 | al-Wāqiʿa (56) | Mecca I | 38/143 | 0/96 |
| 42 | al-Maʿārij (70) | Mecca I | 38/105 | 0/44 |
| 43 | al-Raḥmān (55) | Mecca I | 29/107 | 0/78 |
| 44 | al-Ikhlāṣ (112) | Mecca I | 4/7 | 0/4 |
| 45 | al-Kāfirūn (109) | Mecca I | 4/5 | 0/6 |
| 46 | al-Falaq (113) | Mecca I | 3/11 | 0/5 |
| 47 | al-Nās (114) | Mecca I | 6/11 | 0/6 |
| 48 | al-Fātiḥa (1) | Mecca I | 13/18 | 0/7 |
| 49 | al-Qamar (54) | Mecca II | 54/140 | 0/55 |
| 50 | al-Ṣāffāt (37) | Mecca II | 76/240 | 0/182 |
| 51 | Nūḥ (71) | Mecca II | 39/87 | 0/28 |
| 52 | al-Insān (76) | Mecca II | 40/112 | 0/31 |
| 53 | al-Dukhān (44) | Mecca II | 44/121 | 0/59 |
| 54 | Qāf (50) | Mecca II | 53/147 | 0/45 |
| 55 | Ṭā Hā (20) | Mecca II | 92/325 | 0/135 |
| 56 | al-Shuʿarāʾ (26) | Mecca II | 81/265 | 0/227 |
| 57 | al-Ḥijr (15) | Mecca II | 61/201 | 0/99 |
| 58 | Maryam (19) | Mecca II | 76/238 | 0/98 |
| 59 | Ṣād (38) | Mecca II | 69/234 | 0/88 |
| 60 | Yā Sīn (36) | Mecca II | 70/211 | 0/83 |
| 61 | al-Zukhruf (43) | Mecca II | 66/223 | 0/89 |
| 62 | al-Jinn (72) | Mecca II | 39/101 | 0/28 |
| 63 | al-Mulk (67) | Mecca II | 37/128 | 0/30 |
| 64 | al-Muʾminūn (23) | Mecca II | 79/271 | 0/118 |
| 65 | al-Anbiyāʾ (21) | Mecca II | 76/283 | 0/112 |
| 66 | al-Furqān (25) | Mecca II | 76/250 | 0/77 |
| 67 | al-Isrāʾ (17) | Mecca II | 84/342 | 0/111 |
| 68 | al-Naml (27) | Mecca II | 73/265 | 0/93 |
| 69 | al-Kahf (18) | Mecca II | 94/369 | 0/110 |
| 70 | al-Sajda (32) | Mecca III | 56/130 | 0/30 |
| 71 | Fuṣṣilat (41) | Mecca III | 68/203 | 0/54 |
| 72 | al-Jāthiya (45) | Mecca III | 47/132 | 0/37 |
| 73 | al-Naḥl (16) | Mecca III | 82/357 | 0/128 |
| 74 | al-Rūm (30) | Mecca III | 66/195 | 0/60 |
| 75 | Hūd (11) | Mecca III | 87/348 | 0/123 |
| 76 | Ibrāhīm (14) | Mecca III | 67/224 | 0/52 |
| 77 | Yūsuf (12) | Mecca III | 81/336 | 0/111 |
| 78 | Ghāfir (40) | Mecca III | 76/256 | 0/85 |
| 79 | al-Qaṣaṣ (28) | Mecca III | 81/295 | 0/88 |
| 80 | al-Zumar (39) | Mecca III | 72/245 | 0/75 |
| 81 | al-ʿAnkabūt (29) | Mecca III | 72/222 | 0/69 |
| 82 | Luqmān (31) | Mecca III | 59/183 | 0/34 |
| 83 | al-Shūrā (42) | Mecca III | 65/205 | 0/53 |
| 84 | Yūnus (10) | Mecca III | 87/289 | 0/109 |
| 85 | Sabaʾ (34) | Mecca III | 70/221 | 0/54 |
| 86 | Fāṭir (35) | Mecca III | 64/230 | 0/45 |
| 87 | al-Aʿrāf (7) | Mecca III | 103/477 | 0/206 |
| 88 | al-Aḥqāf (46) | Mecca III | 60/176 | 0/35 |
| 89 | al-Anʿām (6) | Mecca III | 98/419 | 0/165 |
| 90 | al-Raʿd (13) | Mecca III | 71/243 | 0/43 |
| 91 | al-Baqara (2) | Medina | 117/587 | 0/286 |
| 92 | al-Bayyina (98) | Medina | 19/42 | 0/8 |
| 93 | al-Taghābun (64) | Medina | 36/96 | 0/18 |
| 94 | al-Jumuʿa (62) | Medina | 36/76 | 0/11 |
| 95 | al-Anfāl (8) | Medina | 78/267 | 0/75 |
| 96 | Muḥammad (47) | Medina | 50/165 | 0/38 |
| 97 | Āl ʿImrān (3) | Medina | 102/442 | 0/200 |
| 98 | al-Ṣaff (61) | Medina | 34/83 | 0/14 |
| 99 | al-Ḥadīd (57) | Medina | 64/175 | 0/29 |
| 100 | al-Nisāʾ (4) | Medina | 107/462 | 0/176 |
| 101 | al-Ṭalāq (65) | Medina | 33/96 | 0/12 |
| 102 | al-Ḥashr (59) | Medina | 58/157 | 0/24 |
| 103 | al-Aḥzāb (33) | Medina | 80/282 | 0/73 |
| 104 | al-Munāfiqūn (63) | Medina | 33/73 | 0/11 |
| 105 | al-Nūr (24) | Medina | 74/285 | 0/64 |
| 106 | al-Mujādila (58) | Medina | 48/143 | 0/22 |
| 107 | al-Ḥajj (22) | Medina | 84/328 | 0/78 |
| 108 | al-Fatḥ (48) | Medina | 54/176 | 0/29 |
| 109 | al-Taḥrīm (66) | Medina | 35/97 | 0/12 |
| 110 | al-Mumtaḥana (60) | Medina | 36/108 | 0/13 |
| 111 | al-Naṣr (110) | Medina | 6/15 | 0/3 |
| 112 | al-Ḥujurāt (49) | Medina | 42/113 | 0/18 |
| 113 | al-Tawba (9) | Medina | 95/367 | 0/129 |
| 114 | al-Māʾida (5) | Medina | 101/422 | 0/120 |
Built from Tanzil (text), the Quranic Arabic Corpus (grammar), Corpus Coranicum (variant readings), OpenITI and the Mufaddaliyyat (pre-Islamic poetry), OCIANA (inscriptions), SEDRA (Syriac), Sefaria (Hebrew and Aramaic: BDB, Jastrow, Klein), Leslau (Ge'ez) and Lisan al-Arab. Every claim carries the ID of the line it rests on.