The Qur’anic root B GH L

1. The basic meaning and the mule’s name

Kitāb al-ʿAyn states:

«الْبَغْلَةُ وَالْبَغْلُ مَعْرُوفَانِ»

al-baghlatu wa-al-baghlu maʿrūfāni

That is, baghlah and baghl are familiar names.

Al-Ṣiḥāḥ identifies baghl as the singular of bighāl and baghlah as a female mule. Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī likewise describes the animal as the offspring of a horse and a donkey.

Al-ʿAyn, Al-Ṣiḥāḥ, and Al-Mufradāt: the animal’s name and lexical forms

In established Arabic, then, baghl names a particular animal. It is neither a general term for every strong quadruped nor a name for every animal used to carry loads.

In zoological terminology, a mule usually results from a male donkey crossed with a female horse. A male horse crossed with a female donkey produces the related hybrid known as a hinny, distinguished from the usual mule in precise terminology. Mules are generally infertile, although very rare cases of female mules reproducing have been documented.

Extension Horses: mules, hinnies, and rare fertility

This information helps identify the animal, but should not become a set of necessary components of the word’s lexical meaning. An Arabic speaker using baghl need not also be making a judgment about parental sex, chromosome numbers, or reproductive capacity.

The name refers first and foremost to a mule.

Is bodily strength the root’s core?

In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris writes of B GH L:

«الْبَاءُ وَالْغَيْنُ وَاللَّامُ يَدُلُّ عَلَى قُوَّةٍ فِي الْجِسْمِ»

al-bāʾu wa-al-ghaynu wa-al-lāmu yadullu ʿalā quwwatin fī al-jismi

That is, these consonants indicate strength in the body.

He then reports the view that the mule received its name from the strength and firmness of its build.

This explanation fits the mule’s familiar usefulness for riding and carrying loads. Its steady movement and carrying capacity have made it valuable in many settings, particularly on difficult routes.

Such a correspondence does not conclusively establish the historical reason for the name.

That would require establishing whether a word for bodily strength existed first and subsequently named the animal, or whether the animal’s name already existed and its characteristics supplied later expressions.

Ibn Fāris himself raises this issue concerning the relationship between the mule’s name and tabghīl, preferring one direction of derivation.

Thus bodily strength is a lexical explanation of the name’s possible origin; the direct, established meaning of baghl in the Qur’an is a mule.

Ibn Fāris: bodily strength and the direction of derivation

2. Tabghīl and gait in early Arabic

تَبْغِيل is an important form within this family.

Tahdhīb al-Lughah, reporting al-Layth, describes it as a camel gait with broad strides.

Al-Aṣmaʿī describes it as movement between two familiar camel gaits, عَنَق and هَمْلَجَة.

These explanations show that tabghīl was a technical expression for animal movement, rather than simply a general synonym for walking.

Lexicographers disagreed about its relationship with the mule’s name.

Some held that baghl derived from tabghīl because of a connection with the animal’s gait.

Ibn Fāris rejects that direction and derives the gait’s name from the mule: the animal was already called baghl, and a similar camel movement was subsequently termed tabghīl.

This illustrates the problem of derivational direction. Related words alone do not establish which was formed from the other.

A pre-Islamic poetic witness: Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā

In the poem beginning “Bāna al-khalīṭu wa-lam yaʾwū li-man tarakū,” Zuhayr says:

هَلْ تُبْلِغَنِّيَ أَدْنَى دَارِهِمْ قُلُصٌ
يُزْجِي أَوَائِلَهَا التَّبْغِيلُ وَالرَّتَكُ

hal tublighanniya adnā dārihim quluṣun / yuzjī awāʾilahā al-tabghīlu wa-al-rataku

“Will young she-camels bring me to their nearest dwelling, their leaders driven onward by broad-striding movement and a quick, continuous gait?”

Tabghīl here accompanies ratak. Both concern animal movement, but their meanings are not wholly identical.

Lexical explanations describe ratak as a rapid, continuous movement. Tabghīl is a camel gait that lexicographers compare with a mule’s movement.

Zuhayr is describing camels, not mules. The witness thus shows a derivative of the family being used to describe another animal’s movement.

The line supplies evidence for tabghīl in pre-Islamic poetry. By itself, however, it cannot prove that baghl originated as a term for a gait.

Al-Aʿlam al-Shantamarī: Zuhayr’s witness and explanation of tabghīl

A witness from early Islam: Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr

Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr likewise says in his famous poem:

وَلَنْ يَبْلُغَهَا إِلَّا عُذَافِرَةٌ
فِيهَا عَلَى الْأَيْنِ إِرْقَالٌ وَتَبْغِيلُ

wa-lan yablughahā illā ʿudhāfiratun / fīhā ʿalā al-ayni irqālun wa-tabghīlu

“None but a strong, sturdy she-camel will reach that land, one capable, despite fatigue, of rapid movement and broad strides.”

Tabghīl again names a gait. Its pairing with irqāl, itself a rapid camel movement, places it within the vocabulary of travel and animal movement.

Kaʿb is a mukhaḍram, spanning the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, and this poem belongs to early Islam. The line should therefore not be presented as conclusively pre-Qur’anic. Ibn Hishām’s Sīrah also transmits lahā in place of fīhā; both readings concern the same she-camel’s capacity for movement.

Lisān al-ʿArab, ʿ DH F R: the transmitted wa-lan yablughahā

Together, the two poems establish tabghīl as a familiar Arabic term for movement, without proving that it historically preceded the mule’s name.

Ibn Hishām’s Sīrah: Kaʿb’s witness and the lahā reading

Does tabghīl always imply speed?

Some lexical explanations emphasize broad, forceful movement; others emphasize a combination or alternation of gaits.

It should therefore not always be rendered simply as “running fast.”

An animal may move with broad strides without exceeding every other gait in speed. Nor does comparison with a mule’s movement require complete identity in speed or form of movement.

“A kind of broad-striding camel gait” is more precise than absolute descriptions such as “the fastest movement.”

3. Forms outside the Qur’an and extended meanings

Dictionaries record other forms alongside بَغْل, بَغْلَة, and بِغَال.

أَبْغَال is another plural. Some lexicographers classify it as a plural of paucity and bighāl as a plural of multitude. This morphological distinction does not mean that every use of bighāl necessarily describes a very large number of mules. Actual number depends on context.

بَغَّال denotes someone who deals with, tends, or owns mules. Some lexical reports also discuss an ungeminated form and particular plurals of this designation.

مَبْغُولَاء is recorded as a collective designation for mules; it does not occur in the Qur’an.

Tabghīl has been discussed as a camel gait. Baghghala also appears in some expressions concerning mixed ancestry.

Some dictionaries, for example, record فَبَغَّلَ أَوْلَادَهَا concerning someone whose children were described by the speaker as having mixed or socially disfavored ancestry.

This usage draws on the mule’s familiar hybrid status. Biological description of an animal should nevertheless be distinguished from social judgments concerning human beings.

The mule’s hybridity is an identifiable biological characteristic. Using the same image to demean people reflects a social and cultural evaluation.

Such expressions therefore do not establish that B GH L fundamentally means baseness, ignobility, or worthlessness.

Some figurative expressions also make the mule an image of obstinacy or dullness. These cultural images do not describe every actual mule or determine the word’s direct Qur’anic meaning.

The animal’s familiarity underlies these secondary uses. It supplies comparisons concerning gait, bodily build, or mixed ancestry, without those comparisons changing its name’s meaning in the Qur’anic verse.

4. The Qur’anic occurrence: Al-Naḥl 16:8

Verse text:

وَالْخَيْلَ وَالْبِغَالَ وَالْحَمِيرَ لِتَرْكَبُوهَا وَزِينَةً ۚ وَيَخْلُقُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

wa-al-khayla wa-al-bighāla wa-al-ḥamīra li-tarkabūhā wa-zīnatan wa-yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūna

Translation:

“And horses, mules, and donkeys He created for you to ride and as an adornment; and He creates what you do not know.”

Al-Naḥl 16:8

The verse stands among passages describing the creation of animals and their benefits for people.

Al-Naḥl 16:5 mentions livestock, warmth, various benefits, and food. Al-Naḥl 16:6 describes their beauty when brought home and taken out to pasture. Al-Naḥl 16:7 mentions carrying people’s loads to distant lands.

Al-Naḥl 16:8 then names horses, mules, and donkeys and identifies riding and beauty as benefits.

The passage does more than list three animals. In describing life’s resources, it names animals people can use for travel.

Why does the mule appear alongside the horse and donkey?

الْخَيْلَ وَالْبِغَالَ وَالْحَمِيرَ are three distinct designations.

The horse and donkey are familiar animals; the mule is produced by crossing them.

Their practical uses overlap in riding, moving people, and travelling.

Shared use does not remove their differences.

Bighāl is not simply another name for horses and should not be reduced to donkeys. The mule appears beside them with its own name.

This matters in translation: rendering all three merely as “riding animals” would erase distinctions expressed by the Arabic words.

Lengthy biological explanations are also unnecessary in the basic translation. The ordinary word “mule” identifies the animal for the reader, just as qāṭir does in Persian.

The meaning of li-tarkabūhā

لِتَرْكَبُوهَا comes from رَكِبَ and refers to the addressees riding the named animals.

The pronoun hā refers collectively to horses, mules, and donkeys. A feminine singular pronoun referring to a nonhuman plural is a familiar Arabic construction.

The verb therefore does not concern only the last noun, donkeys; it encompasses all three groups.

The initial li expresses the purpose or end of their use.

Mentioning riding does not establish that these animals have no other uses.

Mules can carry loads, donkeys can be used in agricultural work, and horses have uses beyond riding. The verse does not expressly list every such use.

Riding is a prominent, familiar benefit suited to the passage’s subject.

Wa-zīnatan: the animals’ beauty and appearance

The continuation includes وَزِينَةً.

Zīnah belongs to the separate root Z Y N and concerns beauty, adornment, and pleasing appearance.

Here beauty concerns the same animals named for riding.

Grammatically, zīnatan is accusative. One established analysis takes it as another purpose of the animals’ creation: The God created them for riding and beauty.

Another supplies an implicit verb such as jaʿalahā: He made them an adornment.

Both analyses converge in the broad meaning: alongside practical usefulness, these animals have beauty and pleasing appearance for people.

Al-Qurṭubī: two grammatical analyses of zīnatan

Zīnah should therefore not be restricted to ornaments attached to an animal, saddles, packsaddles, or riding equipment.

Such equipment may contribute to its appearance, but the animal itself, its build, movement, and presence can also be beautiful.

Nor does beauty imply uselessness. Riding and adornment stand together as different aspects of human benefit.

One concerns practical function; the other concerns the experience of beauty and adornment.

Al-Naḥl 16:6 had already mentioned jamāl in connection with livestock. Beauty is thus included among life’s blessings, although jamāl and zīnah should not be treated as exact synonyms in every use.

5. Does the verse determine whether mule meat is permitted or forbidden?

One discussion in commentaries draws on the difference between Al-Naḥl 16:5 and Al-Naḥl 16:8 to assess eating animals’ meat.

Al-Naḥl 16:5 says of livestock وَمِنْهَا تَأْكُلُونَ: “and from them you eat.”

Al-Naḥl 16:8 mentions riding and adornment concerning horses, mules, and donkeys, without mentioning eating.

Some commentators and jurists inferred that the second group was created for riding and beauty rather than food.

This argument belongs to the recorded history of interpretation, but the wording’s own implications require separate examination.

Naming one benefit is not the same as restricting all benefits

Al-Naḥl 16:8 presents the animals as available for riding and beauty. It does not say that no other benefit is permitted.

Al-Naḥl 16:7 describes carrying loads to distant lands. Mentioning one benefit in one verse therefore does not necessarily provide a complete list of every possible use.

Likewise, mentioning riding alone does not establish that using an animal’s milk, hide, strength, or other benefits is forbidden.

Such a conclusion would require independent evidence of prohibition or a restrictive qualification.

Al-Naḥl 16:8 contains no explicit expression such as “do not eat,” “it is forbidden to you,” or “use them only for riding.”

Thus the absence of a reference to eating is not, by itself, a declaration that eating is forbidden.

This also does not mean that the Qur’an permits every kind of food without qualification. Questions of permission and prohibition require consideration of the food-related verses, explicit prohibitions, wholesomeness, and necessity.

The present article concerns the meaning of B GH L, rather than a comprehensive ruling on eating every animal.

Historical juristic disagreements should therefore not be inserted into the lexical definition. Bighāl means mules; the noun itself does not establish permission or prohibition.

Al-Ṭabarī: interpretive disagreement and the limits of this verse’s implication

6. Wa-yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūna: beyond the named animals

The verse ends with:

«وَيَخْلُقُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ»

wa-yakhluqu mā lā taʿlamūna

“And He creates what you do not know.”

The sentence follows the naming of horses, mules, and donkeys, but its meaning is not confined to those three animals.

مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ refers to things of which the addressees have no knowledge.

Some early interpretations relate this to unknown creations in the world or creations of which people have not yet heard.

Al-Qurṭubī: different views on unknown creations

Some modern readings also suggest that the sentence may encompass a wider horizon of future means of transport.

That possibility should be distinguished from the verse’s certain meaning.

The verse does not directly name cars, trains, aircraft, or a particular industrial device. Nor does yakhluqu itself establish that every later human invention is the sentence’s direct and exclusive reference.

What the wording clearly establishes is that divine creation is not limited to things the addressees then knew.

This openness fits the context: after familiar creatures have been named, people are reminded that The God’s creation is not limited by their current knowledge.

It does not turn bighāl into a general symbol for all transport. Bighāl still means mules; the concluding sentence is a separate statement with a wider scope.

7. Distinctions from related words and roots

B GH L (baghl) and KH Y L (khayl)

Study of KH Y L (Not yet published)

Khayl in Al-Naḥl refers to horses.

Horses and mules can both be used for riding and transport, but they are neither biologically identical nor named identically in Arabic.

A mule results from crossing a horse and a donkey, and its bodily characteristics may fall between those of its parents.

Riding cultures have used horses and mules for different work. Horses have often been valued for speed and riding, while mules are known for steady movement and carrying loads over difficult routes.

These are general tendencies, not absolute judgments about every horse and mule.

In the Qur’an, the principal distinction is that two independently named animals appear within a shared practical setting.

B GH L (baghl) and Ḥ M R (ḥimār)

Study of Ḥ M R (Not yet published)

Ḥimār denotes a donkey, and ḥamīr is its plural.

Donkeys and mules have some outward similarities but are not identical.

The donkey reproduces as an established animal species; the mule is a horse–donkey hybrid.

The Qur’an expresses the distinction through separate names: al-bighāl and al-ḥamīr.

Their pairing does not make a mule merely a kind of donkey or allow every donkey to be called a mule.

A shared role in riding does not erase differences between the animals or their names.

B GH L (baghl) and B GH Y (baghy)

Study of B GH Y

These roots share their first two consonants but differ in the third and in their semantic structure.

Baghy concerns seeking or desiring and, in some uses, transgression or oppression.

Baghl in the Qur’an names an animal.

Similar consonants do not establish that the mule’s name derives from seeking, transgression, or rebellion.

Nor does the obstinacy sometimes associated with mules in popular culture establish a derivational relationship between these roots.

B GH L (baghl) and B Q R (baqar)

Study of B Q R

Baqar in the Qur’an denotes cattle.

Cattle and mules may both be used for work and carrying loads in some societies. Shared practical use does not make their names synonymous.

B Q R has its own lexical field and must be studied through its own evidence.

The mule should therefore not be merged into the definition of cattle or other quadrupeds simply because it can work or carry loads.

B GH L (baghl) and Ḥ M L (ḥaml)

Study of Ḥ M L (Not yet published)

Ḥaml concerns bearing and moving a load.

Baghl names the animal; ḥaml names the action or the load being carried.

A mule may carry a load, but carrying loads is not the direct meaning of its name.

This matters particularly in translation. Rendering bighāl as “pack animals” removes the specific animal’s name and replaces it with one use.

Nor does the mule’s familiar carrying role mean that li-tarkabūhā in Al-Naḥl refers only to moving goods. Rakiba here concerns people riding.

8. Morphology and translation proposals for Forqan

Baghl is a singular noun whose established meaning is a mule.

Baghlah denotes a female mule.

Bighāl is the familiar plural that occurs in the Qur’an.

The exact written form in Al-Naḥl is:

«وَالْبِغَالَ»

wa-al-bighāla

“And mules.”

The initial wa is a conjunction. Al-bighāla is a definite broken plural in the accusative, rather than a collective noun in the precise morphological sense.

It stands alongside al-khayla and al-ḥamīra and belongs syntactically to the noun series understood with khalaqa in the preceding context.

With its attached conjunction it forms one written unit, but wa is not part of the root consonants.

The differences between baghl, baghlah, and bighāl concern number and grammatical gender. They should not be presented as three independent semantic branches.

Proposed translation

The appropriate Persian equivalent of baghl is qāṭir, “mule.”

Where the animal’s sex matters, baghlah can be rendered qāṭir-e māddah, “female mule.”

For bighāl, qāṭir-hā, “mules,” is natural.

For Al-Naḥl 16:8, the proposed rendering is:

“And horses, mules, and donkeys He created for you to ride and as an adornment; and He creates what you do not know.”

This preserves the three distinct animal names and renders li-tarkabūhā as riding and zīnah as adornment, without reducing an animal’s name to one benefit.

Bighāl should not be rendered “pack animals,” “hybrid horses,” “strong donkeys,” “stubborn animals,” or “means of transport.” These expressions either describe only selected characteristics or have a scope different from the Qur’anic name.

A lexical explanation may mention the mule’s horse–donkey parentage and its reputation for working capacity and steady movement. Such information need not enter the basic verse translation.

9. Conclusion

B GH L occurs in the Qur’an only as al-bighāla, the plural of baghl, meaning mules.

In early Arabic, baghl named a familiar animal, while derivatives such as tabghīl described a camel gait.

Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā’s pre-Islamic verse attests tabghīl in the vocabulary of animal movement. Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr’s poem confirms the use in early Islam.

Ibn Fāris proposes bodily strength in explaining the mule’s name and reports a competing explanation through gait. The historical direction of the relationship is not conclusively established.

Al-Naḥl 16:8 names mules alongside horses and donkeys, mentioning riding and beauty among the resources benefiting human life.

The verse does not list every possible use of the animals. Nor does its mention of riding and beauty alone establish that all other uses are forbidden.

Its concluding sentence reminds people that The God’s creation is not confined to creatures known to the addressees. That wider scope does not alter the specific meaning of bighāl.

Final root definition in Qur’anic usage: Baghl denotes a mule, the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey; bighāl is its plural. The Qur’an names this animal alongside horses and donkeys with reference to riding and beauty.

Arabic records further forms concerning gait and certain social comparisons. The word’s clear Qur’anic meaning remains the animal’s name, rather than bodily strength, hybridity as an abstract concept, or moral traits subsequently attributed to it.