Qur’anic Root A N F
Nose, beginning, and the forefront: from bodily retribution to words spoken just a short while ago
Qur’anic and lexical forms
الْأَنْفَ / بِالْأَنْفِ
(al-anfa / bi-l-anfi)
Two Qur’anic occurrences of the noun “nose,” accusative and genitive; Al-Māʾidah 5:45
آنِفًا
(ānifan)
Qur’anic accusative form: just a short while ago; Muḥammad 47:16
أُنُوف / آناف / آنُف
(unūf / ānāf / ānuf)
Recorded plurals of anf; these forms are absent from the Qur’an
أَنَفَ
(anafa)
Lexical verb: struck the nose; not Qur’anic
مَأْنُوف
(maʾnūf)
Lexical description of a camel with an injured nose; not Qur’anic
أَنِفَ / أَنَفَة
(anifa / anafah)
Lexical verb and noun: aversion, refusal, or self-respect according to context; not Qur’anic
أُنُف
(unuf)
Lexical description: fresh or untouched; not Qur’anic
اسْتَأْنَفَ / اسْتِئْنَاف
(istaʾnafa / istiʾnāf)
Lexical Form X verb and verbal noun: beginning or beginning anew; not Qur’anic
أَنِفًا
(anifan)
Short form reported through some recitation routes; transmission differences discussed in the article
The Arabic root A N F has two principal branches. The first concerns أَنْف (anf), the nose of a human or animal. The second concerns the beginning or front part of something: the start of a route, the first part of an undertaking, or a time that has only recently passed.
In Arabic, أَنْفُ الشَّيْءِ (anfu al-shayʾ) can mean the beginning or front part of something. اسْتَأْنَفَ (istaʾnafa) means to begin or begin something anew. آنِفًا (ānifan) is also used of something that happened just a short while ago.
This family has further uses. أَنِفَ مِنَ الشَّيْءِ (anifa mina al-shayʾ) concerns finding something disagreeable and refusing it out of self-respect or arrogance. أُنُف (unuf) can describe pasture that has not yet been grazed or a drink being drawn from its original vessel for the first time.
The Qur’an uses this root three times in two verses. In Al-Māʾidah 5:45, الْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ (al-anfa bi-l-anfi) concerns the nose as a bodily organ within provisions concerning equivalent retribution. In Muḥammad 47:16, آنِفًا in the question مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا refers to words spoken a short while earlier.
These two uses differ in meaning but belong to the same linguistic family. The first names an actual bodily organ; the second concerns the short interval since an earlier statement.
Some lexicographers have explained the senses of beginning and forefront through the nose’s position at the front of the face. Yet the lexical tradition also distinguishes these two branches. Without decisive historical evidence, we should therefore avoid claiming that every use necessarily arose from the image of the human nose.
1. Qur’anic forms and word structure
The root A N F occurs three times in the Qur’an, in two principal nominal forms.
In Al-Māʾidah 5:45, الْأَنْفَ and بِالْأَنْفِ are two occurrences of the same noun, أَنْف. Their difference arises from grammatical function and the presence of the preposition بِـ (bi-).
الْأَنْفَ (al-anfa) is accusative and appears among the organs covered by the provision concerning retribution.
بِالْأَنْفِ (bi-l-anfi) includes the preposition bāʾ and expresses the correspondence between the injured organ and its counterpart within the same construction.
Muḥammad 47:16 contains آنِفًا (ānifan). It has a temporal meaning here: “just a short while ago” or “a few moments earlier.”
Three occurrences of the root therefore do not mean three independent derivatives. Two belong to the noun أَنْف; one belongs to آنِفًا.
Arabic records the plurals أُنُوف (unūf), آناف (ānāf), and آنُف (ānuf) for أَنْف.
أُنُوف is a familiar plural meaning “noses,” whereas Qur’anic آنِفًا concerns time.
The vowel on the nūn matters: آنُف (ānuf) is a plural of “nose,” while آنِف (ānif) has the temporal use under discussion. Similar spelling should not lead us to conflate their functions.
Arabic also records other forms in this family: أَنَفَ (anafa), to injure the nose; أَنِفَ (anifa), to refuse out of aversion or self-respect; أَنَفَة (anafah), the corresponding state or reaction; اسْتَأْنَفَ (istaʾnafa), to begin anew; and أُنُف (unuf), fresh or untouched.
These forms exist in Arabic but do not occur in these same forms in the Qur’an.
To understand the root, we should keep its two main branches distinct: the nose and the front of a physical thing; and the beginning or temporal freshness of an event.
Uses concerning self-respect, aversion, and something’s untouched condition should also be examined, without reducing them all to one simple meaning.
2. أَنْف in early Arabic: the nose, the start of movement, and social standing
The nose of a human or animal
In its direct use, أَنْف names the nose of a human or animal.
This organ sits at the front of the face and is associated with breathing and smell.
Arabic lexical sources record the verb أَنَفَهُ (anafahu) for striking someone on the nose. The record alone does not establish when the verb was used.
بَعِيرٌ مَأْنُوفٌ (baʿīrun maʾnūfun) can also describe a camel whose nose has been injured by a device used to lead it or by pulling.
In these uses, the meaning is clear and physical. They concern an actual bodily organ, rather than social rank or the beginning of a period.
A verse attributed to the pre-Islamic poet Al-Aʿshā reads:
إِذَا رَوَّحَ الرَّاعِي اللِّقَاحَ مُعَزِّبًا
وَأَمْسَتْ عَلَى آنَافِهَا غَبَرَاتُهَا
idhā rawwaḥa al-rāʿī al-liqāḥa muʿazziban / wa-amsat ʿalā ānāfihā ghabarātuhā
“When the herdsman brings the milk camels back in the evening, after taking them far afield to graze, and dust lies upon their noses.”
Here آناف is a plural of “nose” and refers to the camels’ noses.
The line has variant readings. Lisān al-ʿArab transmits آنافها غبراتها, while Sībawayh’s Kitāb has آنافها عبراتها, referring to tears, and Al-Khaṭṭābī transmits آفاقها غبراتها. In the readings with آنافها, the word concerns noses; the translation above follows the Lisān reading.
This example shows plural forms of أَنْف used in a physical description of animals.
أَنْفُ الشَّيْءِ: the tip or front part
Arabic extends أَنْف beyond the bodily organ to the front or tip of something.
أَنْفُ الْجَبَلِ (anfu al-jabal) names a projecting or forward part of a mountain.
أَنْفُ النَّابِ (anfu al-nāb) can mean the tip or first emerging part of a canine tooth.
أَنْفُ الْعَمَلِ (anfu al-ʿamal) likewise concerns the beginning of an undertaking.
In such uses, anf does not necessarily name a biological organ. It identifies the head, tip, or front part of something.
This extension is intelligible in light of the nose’s position at the front of the face.
Yet an illustrative explanation must be distinguished from historical proof. The older lexical tradition sometimes treats beginning, on the one hand, and the nose as a bodily organ, on the other, as two principal branches.
An intelligible image does not by itself establish how every meaning developed historically.
A pre-Islamic example: فِي أَنْفِهِ in Imruʾ Al-Qays
Imruʾ Al-Qays says of a swift horse:
قَدْ غَدَا يَحْمِلُنِي فِي أَنْفِهِ
لَاحِقُ الْأَيْطَلِ مَحْبُوكٌ مُمَرُّ
qad ghadā yaḥmilunī fī anfihi / lāḥiqu al-ayṭali maḥbūkun mumarru
“At daybreak a lean-flanked, firmly built horse carries me along at the outset of its gallop.”
Lexical and literary explanations interpret فِي أَنْفِهِ here as the beginning of the horse’s gallop. Another interpretation relates the pronoun to the rain mentioned in the preceding lines: at its beginning, or while no one before the poet has yet set foot in it.
Some transmissions have لَاحِقُ الْإِطْلَيْنِ (lāḥiqu al-iṭlayni) in place of لَاحِقُ الْأَيْطَلِ (lāḥiqu al-ayṭali).
This variation concerns the horse’s build and does not change the central sense of anf in the explanation just given.
Accepting the line’s attribution to Imruʾ Al-Qays, it supports the use of anf for the beginning of something. The precise referent of its pronoun, however, is not beyond dispute.
It does not follow that Qur’anic آنِفًا means the swift movement of a horse. In the verse in Muḥammad, the word concerns a short time before the speakers’ question.
The nose and self-respect in social language
In some early Arabic expressions, the nose is associated with self-respect, eminence, and reactions to humiliation.
شَمَخَ بِأَنْفِهِ (shamakha bi-anfihi) can refer to raising one’s head arrogantly.
حَمِيَ أَنْفُهُ (ḥamiya anfuhu) is used of someone who becomes incensed at humiliation or a violation of personal honor.
أَنِفَ مِنَ الشَّيْءِ also concerns refusing or turning away from something because it is considered disagreeable.
Such refusal may arise from preserving one’s dignity or develop into arrogance and self-importance.
أَنَفَة by itself is therefore neither invariably a virtue nor invariably a vice. The cause and object of the reaction matter.
Al-Ḥuṭayʾah and Banū Anf Al-Nāqah
The following occurs in the poetry of Al-Ḥuṭayʾah, a poet who lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. Literary accounts associate this praise with the rivalry between Baghīḍ and Al-Zibriqān in the Islamic period, so it should not be presented as securely dated evidence from before the Qur’an’s revelation:
قَوْمٌ هُمُ الْأَنْفُ وَالْأَذْنَابُ غَيْرُهُمْ
وَمَنْ يُسَوِّي بِأَنْفِ النَّاقَةِ الذَّنَبَا؟
qawmun humu al-anfu wa-al-adhnābu ghayruhum / wa-man yusawwī bi-anfi al-nāqati al-dhanabā
“They are the nose, the forefront, and others are but tails; who would equate the she-camel’s nose with its tail?”
The line was composed about a group known as Banū Anf Al-Nāqah, “the descendants of the she-camel’s nose.”
Literary accounts report that the name had once been considered a source of embarrassment. By opposing nose and tail, the poet turned it into a sign of leadership and preeminence.
Here anf moves from a physical meaning to a metaphor concerning social standing.
The poem’s ranking of leaders and followers is not an essential part of the meaning “nose.”
In Al-Māʾidah 5:45, the same word names a bodily organ and does not directly signify social superiority or inferiority.
3. أُنُف: a fresh beginning and something not yet used
In early Arabic, أُنُف, with ḍammah on both the hamzah and nūn, describes something not yet used or still retaining its initial freshness.
رَوْضَةٌ أُنُفٌ (rawḍatun unufun) is pasture that has not yet been grazed.
كَلَأٌ أُنُفٌ (kalaʾun unufun) is herbage that animals have not yet eaten.
كَأْسٌ أُنُفٌ (kaʾsun unufun) describes a full cup or one from which no one has yet drunk.
These uses concern beginning and first use.
Pasture that has not yet been grazed is fresh pasture for an arriving herd.
A cup from which no one has drunk still awaits its first use.
Such freshness does not necessarily mean that the thing has only just come into existence.
The pasture may have existed for some time without any animal having grazed it.
In this use, unuf therefore concerns being untouched or the beginning of use, rather than necessarily the beginning of existence.
A poetic example: wine not previously drawn from its original vessel
ʿAbdah ibn Al-Ṭabīb, a poet who lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, says the following. His having lived in both periods does not by itself date this line to before the Qur’an’s revelation:
ثُمَّ اصْطَبَحْنَا كُمَيْتًا قَرْقَفًا أُنُفًا
مِنْ طَيِّبِ الرَّاحِ وَاللَّذَّاتُ تَعْلِيلُ
thumma iṣṭabaḥnā kumaytan qarqafan unufan / min ṭayyibi al-rāḥi wa-al-ladhdhātu taʿlīlu
“Then in the morning we drank reddish wine, good wine from whose jar no one had previously drawn; and pleasures offer diversion and solace.”
أُنُفًا describes the wine in this line. قَرْقَف (qarqaf) is also a name for wine. Different explanations relate it to making the drinker shiver, so it should not simply be translated as “strong” without explanation. وَاللَّذَّاتُ تَعْلِيلُ is a separate clause about the diversion and solace afforded by pleasures.
Lexical explanations relate this description to wine from whose original vessel no one had previously drawn.
The word thus points to freshness and first use.
Semantically, this approaches اسْتَأْنَفَ, since both direct attention to a beginning.
Yet this proximity does not make آنِفًا in Muḥammad 47:16 mean fresh wine or something untouched.
In the Qur’an, the word concerns the time of words spoken a short while earlier.
اسْتَأْنَفَ: to begin anew
اسْتَأْنَفَ الْأَمْرَ (istaʾnafa al-amr) concerns beginning or beginning an undertaking anew.
اسْتِئْنَاف (istiʾnāf) is the verbal noun of this verb.
In this use, a person takes something from its beginning or starts it again after a pause or interruption.
The family also supplies expressions concerning the beginning of speech, movement, or a new stage in an undertaking.
In modern Arabic legal terminology, istiʾnāf also refers to appealing a judgment for reconsideration.
This specialized use is not the direct meaning of the Qur’anic verses and should not be imported into Muḥammad 47:16.
There آنِفًا means “recently” or “just a short while ago,” rather than requesting reconsideration or restarting a speech.
4. وَالْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ: the nose among provisions concerning retribution
Al-Māʾidah 5:45 states:
وَكَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِيهَا أَنَّ النَّفْسَ بِالنَّفْسِ وَالْعَيْنَ بِالْعَيْنِ وَالْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ وَالْأُذُنَ بِالْأُذُنِ وَالسِّنَّ بِالسِّنِّ وَالْجُرُوحَ قِصَاصٌ فَمَنْ تَصَدَّقَ بِهِ فَهُوَ كَفَّارَةٌ لَهُ وَمَنْ لَمْ يَحْكُمْ بِمَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ
wa-katabnā ʿalayhim fīhā anna al-nafsa bi-al-nafsi wa-al-ʿayna bi-al-ʿayni wa-al-anfa bi-al-anfi wa-al-udhuna bi-al-udhuni wa-al-sinna bi-al-sinni wa-al-jurūḥa qiṣāṣun fa-man taṣaddaqa bihi fa-huwa kaffāratun lahu wa-man lam yaḥkum bi-mā anzala allāhu fa-ulāʾika humu al-ẓālimūna
“And We prescribed for them in it: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth; and wounds are subject to equivalent retribution. Whoever gives up that right as charity, it will be an expiation for him. Those who do not judge by what The God has sent down are the wrongdoers.”
Al-Māʾidah 5:45
Both الْأَنْفَ and بِالْأَنْفِ here concern the nose as an actual bodily organ.
The nose appears between the eye, ear, and tooth: a series of physical organs whose deliberate injury is considered within the framework of retribution.
أَنْف is therefore not a metaphor for pride, rank, or beginning here.
The verse concerns a human bodily organ, and this clear meaning should be retained in translation.
الْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ: the function of bāʾ
In this expression, the first “nose” concerns injury and the right to retribution.
بِالْأَنْفِ includes bāʾ and expresses correspondence with the matching organ.
The construction stands alongside الْعَيْنَ بِالْعَيْنِ, “an eye for an eye,” and الْأُذُنَ بِالْأُذُنِ, “an ear for an ear.”
In this context, bāʾ thus concerns correspondence and equivalence in retribution.
The meaning of correspondence or retribution should not, however, be extracted from the root A N F itself.
أَنْف names the nose.
Correspondence is understood from the construction “organ for organ.”
قِصَاص (qiṣāṣ) belongs to a separate root and identifies the sentence’s legal framework.
Is this verse a direct command to all people at all times?
The verse opens with وَكَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِيهَا, “And We prescribed for them in it.”
The pronouns in عَلَيْهِمْ, “for them,” and فِيهَا, “in it,” relate to the preceding verses’ context.
Al-Māʾidah 5:44 concerns the Torah and judgment based upon it.
Al-Māʾidah 5:45 therefore directly recounts a provision prescribed in that book for its addressees.
Without examining other verses, we should not present this sentence as an independent command applicable in every detail to every society and legal situation.
Conversely, the verse’s historical framing does not imply that justice, proportionality between response and injury, or the injured person’s rights have no connection with other Qur’anic verses.
Al-Baqarah 2:178 discusses retribution concerning those killed.
Al-Shūrā 42:40 also discusses a response proportionate to a wrong and the value of pardon.
Examining how these verses relate requires a separate study of qiṣāṣ and the rights of injured people.
Forgoing retribution
After stating the provision concerning retribution, the verse says:
فَمَنْ تَصَدَّقَ بِهِ فَهُوَ كَفَّارَةٌ لَهُ, “Whoever gives it up as charity, it is an expiation for him.”
This concerns pardon and relinquishing the right to retribution.
There is, however, an exegetical disagreement over the precise referent of لَهُ, “for him”: whether the expiation benefits the person granting pardon or the person whose retribution has been waived.
The disagreement matters to a full understanding of the provision but does not alter the meaning of أَنْف.
Nor does the possibility of pardon mean that an injured person must relinquish that right in every situation.
The verse states retribution and then presents pardon.
Both the right and the possibility of forgiveness are therefore present in the sentence’s structure.
Does “nose” symbolize honor and dignity?
Arabic can use the nose in metaphors concerning dignity, arrogance, and humiliation.
Those uses do not make الْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ in Al-Māʾidah 5:45 mean “honor for honor.”
The nose’s placement alongside the eye, ear, tooth, and wounds makes its physical meaning clear.
The appropriate translation of this part is therefore “a nose for a nose.”
A physical provision should not be turned into a psychological interpretation merely to connect the root’s two branches.
5. مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا: words spoken just a short while ago
Muḥammad 47:16 states:
وَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ يَسْتَمِعُ إِلَيْكَ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا خَرَجُوا مِنْ عِنْدِكَ قَالُوا لِلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ طَبَعَ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ وَاتَّبَعُوا أَهْوَاءَهُمْ
wa-minhum man yastamiʿu ilayka ḥattā idhā kharajū min ʿindika qālū li-lladhīna ūtū al-ʿilma mādhā qāla ānifan ulāʾika alladhīna ṭabaʿa allāhu ʿalā qulūbihim wa-ittabaʿū ahwāʾahum
“Among them are those who listen to you, but when they leave your presence they say to those who have been given knowledge: ‘What did he say just a short while ago?’ Those are the ones upon whose hearts The God has set a seal, and who have followed their own desires.”
Muḥammad 47:16
This is the only Qur’anic occurrence of آنِفًا.
Here آنِفًا concerns a recent time in the past: Muḥammad has spoken, and the listeners have only recently left his gathering.
Natural English renderings are therefore “just a short while ago” or “a few moments earlier.”
It should not be translated as “yesterday,” “a long time ago,” or “at the beginning of creation.”
Temporal proximity is prominent in this use.
آنِفًا: the beginning of a speech or a recent time?
Arabic آنِفًا is connected with beginning and freshness.
Yet the question in this verse is:
مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا.
That is: “What did he say just a short while ago?”
This does not necessarily mean that the questioners are asking only about the first sentence of Muḥammad’s speech.
They may mean the whole of what they heard in the gathering.
آنِفًا should therefore not be restricted to “at the beginning of his speech.”
Nor does آنِفًا mean restarting a speech.
The meaning “to begin anew” belongs to forms such as istaʾnafa. Here the word has a temporal function and concerns the short interval since the preceding words.
The grammatical function of آنِفًا
آنِفًا is accusative here and semantically identifies the recent time of the statement. Grammatically, it has been analyzed as a temporal adverbial; a circumstantial analysis is also recorded, and grammarians have disputed its classification as an adverbial.
It specifies the time of the verb قَالَ, “he said.”
Thus آنِفًا does not characterize the speaker’s moral disposition.
In the widespread reading, the sentence does not say that Muḥammad spoke arrogantly or that the questioners were inherently “disdainful.”
This matters because Arabic أَنِفَ and أَنَفَة have uses concerning aversion and arrogant refusal.
The temporal meaning of آنِفًا in this verse must remain distinct from that branch.
The difference between hearing and understanding
The verse says that some listen to Muḥammad but, after leaving, ask those with knowledge what he said.
The construction reveals a distinction between hearing and understanding.
Someone may hear words without attending to their meaning.
Their attention may be elsewhere, or they may listen with a prior prejudice.
Yet care is needed in judging the questioners.
The question “What did he say?” is not a sign of mockery or hypocrisy in every situation.
A person sincerely seeking understanding may also ask another: “What did he say a short while ago?”
In Muḥammad 47:16, the rest of the verse and its context make this group’s conduct blameworthy.
The Qur’an says they follow their own desires and that their hearts are in a condition that prevents them from properly receiving the truth.
Neither asking a question nor the word آنِفًا should therefore be presented as inherently blameworthy.
A question arising from inattention or mockery?
Early explanations present two possibilities concerning this question.
On one reading, the listeners did not attend sufficiently to Muḥammad’s words and asked knowledgeable people what he had said after leaving the gathering.
On another reading, the question expressed mockery or deliberate disregard, as though to suggest that his words were unworthy of attention.
Both readings relate to the condemnation at the verse’s end.
Yet the Arabic text does not describe the question with a separate word such as “mockery.”
Adding “they said mockingly” to a translation is therefore contextual explanation. It should not be incorporated into the base translation as though آنِفًا itself meant mockery.
A more precise translation retains the question as written, while discussion examines the context of condemnation.
The contrast with the next verse
Muḥammad 47:17 speaks of those who have accepted guidance and whose guidance The God increases.
This contrast shows that hearing the message does not have the same outcome in everyone.
On one side are people who listen but fail to benefit as they should.
On the other are those who accept guidance and advance in it.
The contrast does not change the meaning of آنِفًا.
The word still refers to the recent past. Differences in people’s moral and intellectual responses emerge from their conduct and the other descriptions in the verses.
A report concerning variant recitation
Some recitation sources also transmit a shorter form of آنِفًا: أَنِفًا (anifan), on the pattern of كَتِف (katif).
The short form is transmitted through some routes from Al-Bazzī, from Ibn Kathīr. Ibn Al-Jazarī objects particularly to including the route transmitted through Abū Al-Fatḥ among the routes of Al-Taysīr and Al-Shāṭibiyyah, while transmissions through other routes are also recorded. Disputes over transmission routes and their assessment should therefore be distinguished from an absolute denial that this form was transmitted.
Two possibilities have also been proposed for the shorter form’s meaning.
One analysis retains the temporal meaning “just a short while ago.”
Another analysis, proposed by Ibn ʿĀshūr on the condition that the transmission is sound, relates it to أَنَفَة and a state of arrogance and disregard.
On the latter analysis, أَنِفًا is a circumstantial description of the listener, respecting the singular wording of مَن, “who.” This differs from the temporal use of the widespread reading.
Since the recitation and exegetical sources themselves discuss these differences, they should not be used to remove or replace the clear meaning of the widespread reading.
In the commonly read Qur’anic text, آنِفًا has a temporal meaning and refers to words recently spoken.
7. Translation proposals and conclusion
For الْأَنْفَ بِالْأَنْفِ in Al-Māʾidah 5:45, a clear, natural translation is:
“A nose for a nose.”
This retains the word’s physical meaning and the construction expressing correspondence in retribution.
“Honor,” “pride,” or “social standing” should not replace the nose, since the verse concerns actual bodily organs.
For مَاذَا قَالَ آنِفًا in Muḥammad 47:16, the proposed translation is:
“What did he say just a short while ago?”
“What did he say a few moments earlier?” is also suitable.
“What did he say at the beginning of his speech?” needlessly restricts the verse’s meaning, since the question may concern the whole of what was recently said.
“What is he saying now?” is also imprecise: قَالَ is past tense, and آنِفًا concerns the recent past.
Outside the Qur’an, أَنْفُ الْجَبَلِ can mean “the projecting part of the mountain,” while أَنْفُ الْعَمَلِ concerns “the beginning of the undertaking.”
اسْتَأْنَفَ can be translated as “he began anew”; أَنِفَ مِنْهُ as “he refused it” or “he considered it beneath him”; and رَوْضَةٌ أُنُفٌ as “ungrazed pasture.”
These meanings should remain in their proper contexts, rather than being transferred without grounds to the two Qur’anic uses.
Conclusion
Arabic A N F has two prominent branches: the nose as a bodily organ, and the beginning or front part of something.
Uses concerning freshness, restarting, self-respect, refusal, and arrogance are also recorded.
The root occurs three times in two Qur’anic verses.
In Al-Māʾidah 5:45, أَنْف occurs twice for the nose among the bodily organs covered by retribution.
In Muḥammad 47:16, آنِفًا concerns a recent time when Muḥammad spoke.
The root thus has two distinct, clear meanings in these verses.
In the first use, the nose is a real organ; the metaphorical senses of honor or arrogance should not replace it.
In the second, the recent past is intended. The questioners’ condemnation comes from the verse’s context, rather than the meaning of آنِفًا itself.
Early Arabic examples also show anf used for the front of things, the beginning of movement, fresh pasture, and self-respect. Without sufficient historical grounds, however, they should not be used to establish a single certain origin for every branch.
Forqan’s final definition of the root A N F:
“In the physical branch: the nose of a human or animal and, by extension, the head or front part of something. In the temporal and beginning branch: the first part of an undertaking, beginning anew, or a time that has only recently passed. In the Qur’an, أَنْف in Al-Māʾidah 5:45 concerns the actual nose within a provision concerning retribution, while آنِفًا in Muḥammad 47:16 means just a short while ago. Arabic also records uses concerning self-respect, aversion, arrogance, and freshness, but these meanings should not be transferred to these two verses without contextual grounds.”