The Qur’anic root B H J

1. The semantic core in early Arabic

Ibn Fāris identifies one principle for B H J in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:

«الْبَاءُ وَالْهَاءُ وَالْجِيمُ أَصْلٌ وَاحِدٌ، وَهُوَ السُّرُورُ وَالنَّضْرَةُ»

al-bāʾu wa-al-hāʾu wa-al-jīmu aṣlun wāḥidun wa-huwa al-surūru wa-al-naḍratu

That is, the family has one principle: joy and freshness.

He then describes nabātun bahījun as beautiful, fresh vegetation and ibtihāj as joy.

In Kitāb al-ʿAyn, al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad gives another definition:

«الْبَهْجَةُ حُسْنُ لَوْنِ الشَّيْءِ وَنَضَارَتُهُ»

al-bahjatu ḥusnu lawni al-shayʾi wa-naḍāratuhu

That is, bahjah is a thing’s beauty of colour and freshness.

Al-ʿAyn and classical lexicons: beauty of colour and freshness

This highlights the root’s perceptible aspect. Something possessing bahjah has a beautiful, pleasing colour or appearance.

Lisān al-ʿArab records the same meaning, then distinguishes plants from people: plants’ freshness and beauty are prominent, while human uses highlight a brightened face or visible joy.

The witnesses establish two real semantic directions.

First, beauty and freshness apparent in a thing itself.

Second, joy arising within a person and possibly appearing outwardly.

The connection is intelligible. A beautiful scene may delight the observer, and inward happiness may give a face a pleasing, cheerful appearance.

This does not make every beautiful thing produce identical joy in every observer, nor reduce beauty to its psychological effect on others.

Joy also need not result from seeing beauty. It may follow good news, meeting a friend, or relief from worry.

The root’s definition should therefore retain both directions without forcibly deriving either from the other.

Bahjah and freshness

نَضْرَة (naḍrah) is important in the family’s lexical explanations.

Freshness concerns a thing’s lively, flourishing, pleasing appearance.

A plant growing after rain, with fresh and healthy leaves, can be described as fresh.

Freshness is not restricted to greenness. Flowers and plants can produce a pleasing appearance through many colours.

Bahjah should therefore not be translated simply as greenness.

Nor is it confined to shining as literal emission of light. A beautiful, attractive appearance need not be a light source.

Natural speech sometimes uses radiance to describe beauty, but the image should not become a physical theory of light.

The Qur’anic uses clearly concern plants’ beauty and freshness, rather than a particular physical property of producing or reflecting light.

2. Morphological forms and uses

Bahija and bahuja

Lexical sources record بَهِجَ (bahija) and بَهُجَ (bahuja).

Bahija bi-al-shayʾi can mean becoming glad because of something.

Someone rejoicing at good news, for example, can be described through this family.

Bahuja can also describe something becoming beautiful and fresh.

Bahuja al-nabātu concerns vegetation becoming beautiful and flourishing.

The distinction occurs in recorded usage, but the middle consonant’s vowel alone does not create an absolute rule without regard to the sentence, object, or preposition.

Bahjah and bahājah

بَهْجَة (bahjah) and بَهَاجَة (bahājah) occur for beauty, pleasing appearance, and freshness.

In some situations they also relate to joy and delight.

Qur’anic bahjah describes gardens.

Bahājah does not occur in the Qur’an and belongs to the broader Arabic study.

Bahīj

بَهِيج (bahīj), on the pattern faʿīl, describes something beautiful, fresh, and pleasing to see.

In nabātun bahījun it describes vegetation.

Applied to a person, however, bahīj can describe their joy and gladness.

The subject receiving the description establishes the distinction.

“Joyful vegetation” does not naturally convey the Qur’anic expression: the passages describe plants’ beauty and freshness.

“A joyful man,” meanwhile, can suit the human use.

Morphological pattern alone therefore does not establish whether a description concerns outward beauty or a human emotional state.

Ibtahaja and ibtihāj

Arabic ibtahaja concerns becoming glad because of something.

In ibtahaja bi-al-shayʾi, someone rejoices because of that thing.

Ibtihāj names that joy.

For humans, the state can appear in facial expression and conduct.

The word does not necessarily mean laughing aloud. Joy can accompany a smile, cheerfulness, or inward ease and pleasure.

Abhaja

Causative أَبْهَجَ (abhaja) means making another glad.

أَبْهَجَتِ الْأَرْضُ (abhajati al-arḍu) can also mean the earth’s vegetation becoming beautiful and fresh.

The earth is the grammatical subject, while its plants and their appearance supply the beauty in question.

Tabāhaja

تَبَاهَجَ الرَّوْضُ (tabāhaja al-rawḍu) describes a meadow with abundant blossoms and a beautiful appearance.

Some expressions also use tabāhaja al-nuwwāru.

These concern beauty spreading among a collection of flowers and plants.

Form VI does not establish that the flowers actually feel rivalry or human happiness toward one another.

Poetry and nature description can use such forms for the combined beauty and appearance of a scene’s elements.

Bahhaja and mubahhaj

بَهَّجَ (bahhaja) can mean making more beautiful or adorning.

مُبَهَّج (mubahhaj) can describe something whose beauty has been enhanced or whose appearance is adorned.

These forms do not occur in the Qur’an.

The family therefore concerns beauty and freshness themselves, human joy, and producing beauty or joy.

3. Early Arabic poetic witnesses

Arabic poetry illustrates two important directions: human joy and the beauty of something provoking delight or admiration.

Al-Nābighah al-Dhubyānī: joy upon finding a pearl

Describing beauty, al-Nābighah mentions a precious pearl:

أَوْ دُرَّةٌ صَدَفِيَّةٌ غَوَّاصُهَا
بَهِجٌ مَتَى يَرَهَا يُهِلَّ وَيَسْجُدِ

aw durratun ṣadafiyyatun ghawwāṣuhā / bahijun matā yarahā yuhilla wa-yasjudi

Translation: “Or a pearl within a shell whose diver is joyful; whenever he sees it, he raises a cry and prostrates.”

Bahijun describes the diver, rather than the pearl.

The pearl’s beauty and value have made him glad, but the adjective describes the person who has found or seen it.

The distinction matters for understanding the root.

The same family that describes a plant’s beauty here expresses human joy.

Their connection is clear: something beautiful and valuable can produce delight.

The adjective directly means joyful, rather than merely describing the diver’s complexion or bodily beauty.

The verse appears in al-Nābighah’s collected poetry and early lexicons. Some transmissions slightly vary the verb of seeing the pearl, while bahij and the diver’s joy remain clear. In the present reading, matā is conditional, yuhilla is its answer, and the final kasrah of yasjudi relates to the poem’s rhyme.

Tāj al-ʿArūs: al-Nābighah’s witness and conditional vocalisation

Abū Dhuʾayb al-Hudhalī: joy from receiving a gift

Abū Dhuʾayb al-Hudhalī says:

فَذَلِكَ سُقْيَا أُمِّ عَمْرٍو وَإِنَّنِي
لِمَا بَذَلَتْ مِنْ سَيْبِهَا لَبَهِيجُ

fa-dhālika suqyā Ummi ʿAmrin wa-innanī / li-mā badhalat min saybihā la-bahīju

Translation: “May that rain bring refreshment to Umm ʿAmr; I am joyful at what she has bestowed from her bounty.”

Bahīj describes the poet himself.

His delight arises from the generosity, affection, or attention of the person named in the poem.

Again, bahīj does not mean beautiful vegetation or a fresh landscape.

The witness shows that Arabic can describe a person’s joy without a natural landscape being its subject.

Abū Dhuʾayb is a mukhaḍram poet whose life also belongs to early Islam. The verse attests early usage, but its composition should not be declared definitely pre-Qur’anic without evidence.

Tāj al-ʿArūs: Abū Dhuʾayb’s witness and invocation of rain

A flowering meadow and visible beauty

Al-ʿAyn and other lexical sources transmit a line describing a meadow:

نُوَّارُهَا مُتَبَاهِجٌ يَتَوَهَّجُ

nuwwāruhā mutabāhijun yatawahhaju

Translation: “Its blossoms flourish and appear in a beautiful, radiant display.”

Mutabāhij describes the flowers.

The difference from al-Nābighah is clear.

In al-Nābighah’s verse, the diver rejoices.

The meadow description concerns the flowers’ own beauty and outward appearance.

Yatawahhaju contributes to the radiant image, but belongs to the independent root W H J. Its entire meaning should not be transferred to tabāhaja.

The line’s author and date are not definitively established by the witnesses examined. It should not be assigned to a pre-Islamic poet without evidence.

Al-ʿAyn and Tāj: the blooming-meadow witness

The three witnesses establish both human pleasure and natural beauty within B H J. The described subject and sentence structure identify the particular meaning.

4. Bahīj in vegetation after rain: Al-Ḥajj 22:5

Verse text:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ فِي رَيْبٍ مِنَ الْبَعْثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ نُطْفَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ مُضْغَةٍ مُخَلَّقَةٍ وَغَيْرِ مُخَلَّقَةٍ لِنُبَيِّنَ لَكُمْ ۚ وَنُقِرُّ فِي الْأَرْحَامِ مَا نَشَاءُ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى ثُمَّ نُخْرِجُكُمْ طِفْلًا ثُمَّ لِتَبْلُغُوا أَشُدَّكُمْ ۖ وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُتَوَفَّىٰ وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰ أَرْذَلِ الْعُمُرِ لِكَيْلَا يَعْلَمَ مِنْ بَعْدِ عِلْمٍ شَيْئًا ۚ وَتَرَى الْأَرْضَ هَامِدَةً فَإِذَا أَنْزَلْنَا عَلَيْهَا الْمَاءَ اهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ وَأَنْبَتَتْ مِنْ كُلِّ زَوْجٍ بَهِيجٍ

yā ayyuhā al-nāsu in kuntum fī raybin mina al-baʿthi fa-innā khalaqnākum min turābin thumma min nuṭfatin thumma min ʿalaqatin thumma min muḍghatin mukhallaqatin wa-ghayri mukhallaqatin li-nubayyina lakum wa-nuqirru fī al-arḥāmi mā nashāʾu ilā ajalin musamman thumma nukhrijukum ṭiflan thumma li-tablughū ashuddakum wa-minkum man yutawaffā wa-minkum man yuraddu ilā ardhali al-ʿumuri li-kaylā yaʿlama min baʿdi ʿilmin shayʾan wa-tarā al-arḍa hāmidatan fa-idhā anzalnā ʿalayhā al-māʾa ihtazzat wa-rabat wa-anbatat min kulli zawjin bahījin

Translation:

“O people, if you doubt the resurrection, We created you from dust, then a drop, then a clinging substance, then a morsel of flesh, formed and unformed, to make clear to you. We establish in wombs what We will until an appointed term, then bring you forth as children, then that you may reach your full strength. Among you is one whose life is taken and one returned to the most diminished stage of life, so that after knowledge he knows nothing. You see the earth lifeless, but when We send water upon it, it stirs, swells, and produces every kind of beautiful, fresh vegetation.”

This is an important Qur’anic use of B H J.

Its opening concerns doubt about resurrection after death. It then describes human creation and life: initial creation, growth in the womb, birth, maturity, death, and some people’s return to incapacity in old age.

An image of the earth follows.

The earth appears inactive; water then brings movement, increase, and varied vegetation.

Bahījin concludes this image.

The meaning of min kulli zawjin bahījin

Zawj here denotes a kind or variety of vegetation.

Arabic zawj is not invariably restricted to a male-female pair. Some uses denote a kind or category.

Early explanations of this verse likewise understand min kulli zawjin as varieties of plants.

“From every male-female pair of plants” should therefore not replace the expression without independent contextual evidence.

The passage concerns varied vegetation appearing after water reaches the earth.

Bahījin describes this zawjin.

For plants, it means beautiful and fresh.

The description concerns more than a plant’s existence: it highlights its visible quality and pleasing, flourishing appearance.

Growing and being bahīj

Anbatat belongs to N B T and expresses producing vegetation.

Bahīj does not name the growing itself; it describes what has grown.

The distinction matters.

A plant may have newly emerged from the soil without its full appearance and freshness yet becoming visible.

A plant nearing the end of its growing period may also remain alive while its leaves and flowers have lost their earlier freshness.

Bahīj therefore cannot mean simply grown or growing.

The sentence has an independent verb for growth; bahīj depicts the vegetation’s beauty and freshness.

The connection with inactive earth

The earth-related passage begins with hāmidatan.

It belongs to H M D, relating here to inactivity and the subsiding of visible life and growth.

Ihtazzat and rabat then follow.

These concern movement and increase or rising.

Finally, anbatat expresses producing vegetation, and bahījin describes its beauty and freshness.

The verse depicts a perceptible change through several distinct words.

After receiving water, formerly inactive earth becomes a scene of movement, increase, and growth.

Plants’ beauty and freshness are a visible aspect of this transformation.

Bahīj should nevertheless not be defined as life itself, revival, or resurrection.

Resurrection is the argument’s main subject; the adjective’s lexical meaning remains plants’ beauty and freshness.

This preserves the natural image while clarifying the argument about divine ability to raise human beings.

Al-Ṭabarī: kinds of vegetation and the beauty of bahīj

5. Gardens possessing bahjah: Al-Naml 27:60

Verse text:

أَمَّنْ خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَأَنْزَلَ لَكُمْ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَنْبَتْنَا بِهِ حَدَائِقَ ذَاتَ بَهْجَةٍ مَا كَانَ لَكُمْ أَنْ تُنْبِتُوا شَجَرَهَا ۗ أَإِلَٰهٌ مَعَ اللَّهِ ۚ بَلْ هُمْ قَوْمٌ يَعْدِلُونَ

am-man khalaqa al-samāwāti wa-al-arḍa wa-anzala lakum mina al-samāʾi māʾan fa-anbatnā bihi ḥadāʾiqa dhāta bahjatin mā kāna lakum an tunbitū shajarahā a-ilāhun maʿa Allāhi bal hum qawmun yaʿdilūna

Translation:

“Or the One who created heaven and earth and sent water down from heaven for you, through which We produced gardens possessing beauty and freshness? You could not make their trees grow. Is there a deity alongside The God? Rather, they are people who set up equals.”

The verse belongs to a series of questions about creation, governance of the world, and divine oneness.

It places the creation of heavens and earth alongside descending water and growing gardens.

It then asks whether there is a deity alongside The God.

The beautiful gardens therefore do more than describe a pleasant scene: they are observable signs of creation in ordinary life.

The meaning of ḥadāʾiqa dhāta bahjatin

Ḥadāʾiq is the plural of ḥadīqah, gardens.

Dhāta bahjatin describes those gardens.

Dhāt here expresses possession: the gardens possess bahjah.

In relation to a garden, bahjah denotes its beauty and freshness.

That beauty can appear in trees, leaves, flowers, colours, and the garden’s natural arrangement.

The word itself specifies neither tree numbers, flower species, nor planting arrangement.

“Gardens with dense trees and colourful flowers” is imaginable but adds details that bahjah does not expressly determine.

“Gardens possessing beauty and freshness” better preserves the main meaning.

The Persian equivalent of “eye-catching gardens” is also fluent, but places more emphasis on beauty’s effect on the observer.

Dhāta bahjatin describes the garden’s own quality. A lexical study should recognise both visible beauty and its pleasing effect.

Does bahjah mean only the observer’s happiness?

Bahjah is attributed to the garden here.

Its direct meaning is therefore not someone’s inward happiness.

A beautiful garden can of course delight an observer, making the relationship between beauty and ibtihāj intelligible.

The sentence does not imply that the gardens themselves experience human joy.

Nor does a garden lack bahjah until someone becomes happy upon seeing it.

The garden’s outward quality and the observer’s response are related but distinct.

Water, growth, and the garden’s beauty

In fa-anbatnā bihi ḥadāʾiqa dhāta bahjatin, bihi refers to water descending from heaven.

The construction connects water with the gardens’ growth.

Bahjah itself does not mean water or irrigation.

Water is the means of growth; bahjah is a quality of the resulting gardens.

This distinction matters: a garden’s beauty need not be reducible to one factor.

Trees, soil, light, water, and growth processes all play roles in nature.

The verse nevertheless emphasises descending water and growing gardens through divine command.

Mā kāna lakum an tunbitū shajarahā does not imply that humans have no role in farming, planting, watering, or tending gardens.

People can sow seeds, raise seedlings, and provide conditions for growth.

Those abilities differ from creating plant life itself and establishing its laws and capacity to grow.

The contextual question concerns the source of creation and the ability to produce such gardens.

Their beauty and freshness are part of creation’s signs; bahjah itself does not mean creative power.

Al-Ṭabarī: beautiful gardens and the question about a deity

6. Beautiful varieties of vegetation: Qāf 50:7

Verse text:

وَالْأَرْضَ مَدَدْنَاهَا وَأَلْقَيْنَا فِيهَا رَوَاسِيَ وَأَنْبَتْنَا فِيهَا مِنْ كُلِّ زَوْجٍ بَهِيجٍ

wa-al-arḍa madadnāhā wa-alqaynā fīhā rawāsiya wa-anbatnā fīhā min kulli zawjin bahījin

Translation:

“And the earth We spread out, and placed firm mountains in it, and produced in it every kind of beautiful, fresh vegetation.”

The verse continues an invitation to observe heaven and earth.

Qāf 50:6 speaks of heaven’s construction and adornment.

Qāf 50:7 then directs attention to earth, mountains, and vegetation.

Bahījin again describes zawjin.

Its direct meaning is a variety of vegetation that is beautiful and fresh.

Bahīj and plant diversity

Min kulli zawjin bahījin concerns different kinds and varieties of plants.

Diversity can appear in leaf shapes, flower colours, plant sizes, and other observable features.

Bahīj alone does not establish that every plant must have colourful flowers or edible fruit.

Many plants can be beautiful in shape, colour, or proportion without large flowers or familiar fruits.

Beauty also differs from usefulness as food.

Bahīj concerns beauty and freshness here; subsequent verses describe food and provision through other words.

The following verses

Qāf 50:8 presents these signs as insight and reminder for a servant who turns back.

Qāf 50:9 speaks of blessed water descending from heaven and producing gardens and harvestable grain.

Qāf 50:10 introduces palms and their ordered clusters.

Qāf 50:11 describes provision for the servants and water reviving a dead land, then connects this to coming forth again after death.

The context makes the vegetation’s beauty in Qāf 50:7 part of a collection of signs of creation and divine ability.

As in Al-Ḥajj, bahīj should nevertheless not become “raised after death.”

Beautiful, fresh vegetation is the adjective’s direct subject.

Creative and re-creative power is a conclusion from the passages’ combined argument.

The difference from Al-Ḥajj

Al-Ḥajj describes growth after inactive earth receives water, highlighting transformation from barrenness to vegetation.

Qāf places beautiful plant varieties beside the earth’s extent and firm mountains. Water and the revival of dead land follow.

The verses use a shared adjective, but their order and argumentative focus differ.

Both retain beauty and freshness in bahīj; each surah’s context establishes its role in the wider argument.

7. Differences from neighbouring roots

B H J, bahjah, and Ḥ S N, ḥusn

Study of Ḥ S N

Arabic Ḥ S N has a broad range, including beauty, goodness, right conduct, and a thing’s desirable quality.

Bahjah particularly concerns visible beauty, freshness, and pleasing appearance.

A just action can be ḥasan without involving beautiful colour or outward freshness.

A garden possessing bahjah, however, highlights perceptible beauty and pleasing appearance.

In appearance-related uses the words are close, and lexicographers sometimes explain bahīj through ḥasan.

The difference is therefore a tendency, rather than an absolute boundary.

B H J, bahjah, and N Ḍ R, naḍrah

Study of N Ḍ R (Not yet published)

Naḍrah is among the closest words to bahjah.

Both can describe the freshness and beautiful appearance of vegetation or a human face.

Naḍrah particularly highlights freshness and flourishing appearance.

Bahjah makes pleasing beauty and its connection with joy more apparent.

This does not separate freshness from bahjah or beauty from naḍrah: dictionaries themselves explain bahjah through naḍrah.

Their semantic overlap is real.

B H J, bahjah, and Z Y N, zīnah

Study of Z Y N (Not yet published)

Zīnah concerns adornment and beauty.

Qur’anic adornment can concern clothing, possessions, children, heaven, and other subjects.

Qur’anic bahjah describes gardens’ and plants’ beauty and freshness.

A fresh plant may form part of a garden’s adornment, but that relationship does not make the roots identical.

Zīnah can be added to something or appear in a collection’s arrangement; plant-related bahjah particularly concerns its own beauty and freshness.

This too is not absolute, since Qur’anic zīnah is not confined to artificial additions.

Qāf 50:6 expresses heaven’s adornment through Z Y N; Qāf 50:7 expresses the earth’s beautiful vegetation through bahīj.

The proximity allows comparison, but does not establish that heaven lacks natural beauty or that plants cannot be adornment.

B H J, bahjah, and Z H R, zahr

Study of Z H R (Not yet published)

Z H R concerns flowers and blossoms and, in some uses, radiance or outward splendour.

Bahjah can also describe flowering meadows and plants.

Not everything bahīj is necessarily a flower.

A garden with leafy trees can also be beautiful and fresh.

Bahīj therefore should not become simply flowering or blossoming.

Flowers can exemplify beauty without exhausting its meaning.

B H J, bahjah, and F R Ḥ, faraḥ

Study of F R Ḥ (Not yet published)

Faraḥ concerns joy and gladness, resembling the human branch of B H J.

Qur’anic bahīj, however, describes plants rather than a human inward state.

Joy in the Qur’an can be praised or criticised depending on its subject and context.

Yūnus 10:58 positively presents rejoicing in divine bounty and mercy, whereas other verses criticise joy arising from pride or conceit.

The evaluations associated with faraḥ should therefore not all be transferred to bahjah.

Nor does every natural beauty necessarily produce a particular moral or spiritual joy in the observer.

B H J, bahjah, and S R R, surūr

Study of S R R

Surūr also concerns joy and gladness.

Ibn Fāris uses it to define B H J.

Their human uses can be very close.

B H J also has a clear perceptible branch: beauty and freshness in plants, colours, and appearances.

Not every derivative can therefore be translated solely as joy.

Particularly in the Qur’an, bahīj denotes beautiful, fresh vegetation rather than a joyful plant.

8. Beauty’s meaning and its place in the verses

All three Qur’anic occurrences concern creation and vegetation.

The Qur’an thus expresses natural beauty through more than general words such as ḥusn and zīnah: this family connects outward freshness with its pleasing quality.

Beauty here is part of ordinary life.

People can observe the earth changing and plants growing after rain. Leaves, branches, flowers, and other parts emerge before their eyes, producing a scene different from dry or barren earth.

The passages therefore appeal to something observable.

This does not make all plants equally beautiful to everyone at every stage of growth.

Nor should beauty be confined to colour or outward form, since freshness also belongs to bahjah’s field.

A plant’s beauty alone, however, is not the verses’ full meaning.

In Al-Ḥajj it forms part of an argument about resurrection.

In Al-Naml beautiful gardens occur among questions about creation and divine oneness.

In Qāf beautiful plants belong to signs concerning insight, remembrance, and re-creation.

One word with a particular meaning can therefore function within different arguments.

The difference should not turn B H J’s lexical meaning into resurrection, divine oneness, or faith.

Those are the arguments’ subjects and direction; bahīj and bahjah retain visible beauty and freshness.

9. Translation proposals for Forqan

Bahjah can be rendered “beauty and freshness,” “a beautiful, flourishing appearance,” or, in some sentences, “delightful beauty.”

In a human context concerning happiness, “joy” or “delight” can fit.

For bahīj describing vegetation, “beautiful and fresh” is precise and natural.

“Pleasing” and “delightful” can convey part of the meaning but less explicitly retain freshness.

Ibtahaja can mean “became glad” or “rejoiced.”

Abhaja can mean “gladdened,” “caused delight,” or, for the earth, “became beautiful and fresh,” depending on the sentence.

Tabāhaja al-rawḍu can be rendered “the meadow acquired a beautiful, flourishing appearance.”

Bahhaja in a beautifying use can mean “beautified” or “enhanced its appearance.”

Translating the Qur’anic uses

Al-Ḥajj 22:5

«مِنْ كُلِّ زَوْجٍ بَهِيجٍ»

min kulli zawjin bahījin

Proposed: “From every kind of beautiful, fresh vegetation.”

Zawj denotes a kind or variety, and bahīj describes its beauty and freshness.

Al-Naml 27:60

«حَدَائِقَ ذَاتَ بَهْجَةٍ»

ḥadāʾiqa dhāta bahjatin

Proposed: “Gardens possessing beauty and freshness.”

This retains the possessive dhāt and the description bahjah.

“Beautiful, delightful gardens” is another fluent equivalent, but lexical study benefits from retaining freshness explicitly.

Qāf 50:7

«مِنْ كُلِّ زَوْجٍ بَهِيجٍ»

min kulli zawjin bahījin

Proposed: “From every kind of beautiful, fresh vegetation.”

The same equivalent fits Al-Ḥajj because the lexical construction is identical.

Equivalents requiring caution

“Happy” alone does not suit bahīj describing vegetation, since it can transfer a human emotional state to a plant.

“Green” is likewise insufficient: beauty and freshness are not restricted to that colour.

“Blossoming” and “flowering” name particular plant features without encompassing all bahīj vegetation.

“Radiant” can be pleasing literary language, but alone may narrow beauty and freshness into a particular light-related quality.

“Beautiful and fresh,” by contrast, clearly and naturally retains both main aspects of the plant-related use.

10. Conclusion

Arabic B H J concerns beauty, freshness, and joy.

Ibn Fāris describes one principle through surūr and naḍrah; al-Khalīl emphasises a thing’s beauty of colour and freshness.

Early poetry displays two semantic directions.

Al-Nābighah’s diver seeing a precious pearl is bahij: joyful.

Abū Dhuʾayb uses bahīj for human joy from receiving generosity.

The meadow description, by contrast, uses tabāhaja for flowers’ visible beauty.

The Qur’anic root occurs only in vegetation-related settings.

In Al-Ḥajj 22:5, earth receiving water stirs, increases, and produces beautiful, fresh varieties of plants.

In Al-Naml 27:60, gardens possessing bahjah appear among the signs of creation.

In Qāf 50:7, beautiful plant varieties accompany the spread earth and firm mountains.

In all three, natural beauty belongs to a wider argument about creation and divine power and wisdom; those messages do not replace the words’ lexical meaning.

Qur’anic bahīj does not mean revival, blossoming, inward joy, or one particular plant species. It directly describes vegetation as beautiful and fresh.

Final root definition: B H J denotes visible beauty and freshness apparent in a thing’s colour, appearance, or display. Applied to humans, it denotes joy and pleasure arising from something pleasing and possibly appearing in the face and behaviour.

These directions are connected without either becoming the exclusive meaning of the other.

In Qur’anic usage, bahjah expresses gardens’ beauty and freshness; bahīj describes beautiful, fresh varieties of vegetation.

This family’s distinguishing feature is beauty joined with freshness and pleasing appearance, and its connection with joy; not merely general beauty, greenness alone, or every kind of happiness.

“Beauty and freshness” for bahjah and “beautiful and fresh” for bahīj are therefore the best basic equivalents for the three Qur’anic occurrences.