The Qur’anic Root B J S (bajasa)

1. Introducing the root and its Qur’anic form

Arabic B J S concerns an opening through which water emerges from a previously enclosed place. It may issue from a fissure in earth, stone, a waterskin or elsewhere. In the family’s basic usage, splitting alone is insufficient: something must emerge and flow.

The root occurs only once in the Qur’an, as fa-inbajasat in Al-Aʿrāf 7:160. Twelve springs issue from stone in response to Moses’s people needing water.

Fa-inbajasat is a form VII perfect verb, third-person feminine singular. Its verbal noun is inbijās and its unprefixed perfect inbajasa. Initial fa- relates the event to the preceding command; final -t marks the feminine verb.

Other recorded forms include bajasa, bajjasa, tabajjasa, bajs and bajīs, but these do not occur in the Qur’an.

The same story appears elsewhere with a verb from F J R. Al-Baqarah 2:60 uses fa-infajarat for the twelve springs issuing from stone.

The meanings are close. Whether they are fully synonymous or differ in force, the onset of flow or its manner requires examination of earlier Arabic and both passages.

2. The semantic core in early sources

An opening and the emergence of water

In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris introduces the root’s semantic core as:

«تَفَتُّحُ الشَّيْءِ بِالْمَاءِ خَاصَّةً»

tafattuḥu al-shayʾi bi-l-māʾi khāṣṣatan

That is, something opening with water, or an outlet opening through which water emerges.

He then quotes al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad in terms important to understanding the family:

«الْبَجْسُ انْشِقَاقٌ فِي قِرْبَةٍ أَوْ حَجَرٍ أَوْ أَرْضٍ يَنْبُعُ مِنْهَا مَاءٌ»

al-bajsu inshiqāqun fī qirbatin aw ḥajarin aw arḍin yanbuʿu minhā māʾun

Bajs is a split in a waterskin, stone or earth from which water issues.

Al-Khalīl expressly says that without water emerging, the event is not called inbijās.

This definition joins two elements: an outlet opening and water emerging.

Picture a leather waterskin filled with water. If a split develops and water comes out, the event fits inbijās. If it splits without water emerging, the opening alone does not convey the full sense.

The same image applies to stone or earth: water previously hidden or enclosed finds an outlet and becomes visible.

This explanation does not establish a particular pressure, fissure size or geological mechanism. The early sources explain a linguistic meaning rather than measuring the phenomenon through modern physics.

Verb forms and their relationship

Bajasa al-māʾa can describe causing water to emerge or flow, while fa-inbajasa describes the resulting emergence. The intransitive bajasa al-māʾu is also recorded for water itself issuing forth; form I is therefore not invariably transitive.

Lisān al-ʿArab records the relationship clearly: someone opens a way for water or brings it out, and the water issues from that location.

Bajjasa also has transitive uses; tabajjasa describes liquid flowing or issuing forth.

Bajīs can describe flowing water. It characterizes something flowing rather than necessarily naming a spring or a particular volume.

Form VII inbajasa suits the occurrence of a state or result following an act upon something. The pattern alone does not determine the amount of water or the force of its emergence.

Fa-inbajasat thus foregrounds the outlet opening and flow becoming apparent. Other evidence is needed to establish the flow’s manner and extent.

3. Earlier Arabic and everyday life

The recorded family is not restricted to natural springs. Arabic could use its forms for liquid emerging from a vessel, the ground, a cloud or even food.

Waterskins, wells and vessels

Leather waterskins and large buckets were familiar means of storing and moving water in desert life.

The lexicons record tabajjasa al-gharb. Gharb here is a large water bucket; tabajjasa describes water pouring or flowing from it.

The root therefore need not describe water coming from underground. Water can also emerge from a vessel or container.

In the Qur’anic passage the outlet is stone. The particular outlet is not a fixed component of the root’s meaning: what these examples share is a flow appearing from an identifiable place.

A poetic witness close to the Qur’anic period

A rajaz poem attributed to al-ʿAjjāj says:

وَانْحَلَبَتْ عَيْنَاهُ مِنْ فَرْطِ الْأَسَى

wa-nḥalabat ʿaynāhu min farṭi al-asā

وَكِيفَ غَرْبَيْ دَالِجٍ تَبَجَّسَا

wakīfa gharbay dālijin tabajjasā

Translation: “His eyes poured tears from overwhelming grief, like the outflow of two great buckets of a water-carrier taking water from the well to the trough—two buckets from which water streams.”

The poet compares tears flowing to water from two large buckets. Tabajjasā belongs to this family and describes abundant liquid emerging in this image. Wakīf is a verbal noun for pouring or dripping, not the interrogative phrase “and how”; dālij denotes the person carrying and emptying a bucket from the well toward the trough.

This witness does not restrict the word to a small trickle. The image is a visible, substantial flow. Al-Zamakhsharī also cites it in al-Kashshāf when explaining inbijās, relating it to abundant emergence.

Biographical sources count al-ʿAjjāj among poets who lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, born before Islam and surviving into the Umayyad era. His death is reported around 90 AH. The date of this particular line is unknown, so it cannot confidently be treated as definitively preceding revelation. Its value lies in attested earlier Arabic usage close to the Qur’anic period.

Clouds and rain

Lexical sources also record clouds tabajjas and rain issuing from them.

Ibn Fāris gives an example of tabajjasa applied to a cloud: the liquid emerges from cloud rather than stone or a waterskin.

The usage fits the broad image of flowing liquid emerging, without establishing a scientific claim that a cloud literally splits. Language can portray rainfall through opening and pouring forth.

Food

Ibn Fāris reports, from Yaʿqūb ibn al-Sikkīt, jāʾanā bi-tharīdatin tatabajjasu: a dish of tharīd brought with abundant fat and liquid spilling forth.

Tharīd combines bread with broth or a sauce. The verb extends from flowing water to a dish’s abundant liquid and fat.

This does not change Qur’anic inbijās, but shows that the Arabic family can also describe other liquids emerging.

The lexicons also record opening a wound and its contents emerging. Ibn Fāris attributes this usage cautiously; it must not become an established pre-Islamic usage without independent evidence.

Together the examples give a clear linguistic image: an outlet opening and a flow appearing. Water is central to the early definition, while extended usage can concern other liquids.

4. The Qur’anic use: twelve springs from stone

Al-Aʿrāf 7:160

وَقَطَّعْنَاهُمُ اثْنَتَيْ عَشْرَةَ أَسْبَاطًا أُمَمًا ۚ وَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَىٰ مُوسَىٰ إِذِ اسْتَسْقَاهُ قَوْمُهُ أَنِ اضْرِبْ بِعَصَاكَ الْحَجَرَ ۖ فَانْبَجَسَتْ مِنْهُ اثْنَتَا عَشْرَةَ عَيْنًا ۖ قَدْ عَلِمَ كُلُّ أُنَاسٍ مَشْرَبَهُمْ ۚ وَظَلَّلْنَا عَلَيْهِمُ الْغَمَامَ وَأَنْزَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمُ الْمَنَّ وَالسَّلْوَىٰ ۖ كُلُوا مِنْ طَيِّبَاتِ مَا رَزَقْنَاكُمْ ۚ وَمَا ظَلَمُونَا وَلَٰكِنْ كَانُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ

wa-qaṭṭaʿnāhumu ithnatay ʿashrata asbāṭan umaman wa-awḥaynā ilā mūsā idhi istasqāhu qawmuhu ani iḍrib bi-ʿaṣāka al-ḥajara fa-inbajasat minhu ithnatā ʿashrata ʿaynan qad ʿalima kullu unāsin mashrabahum wa-ẓallalnā ʿalayhimu al-ghamāma wa-anzalnā ʿalayhimu al-manna wa-l-salwā kulū min ṭayyibāti mā razaqnākum wa-mā ẓalamūnā wa-lākin kānū anfusahum yaẓlimūna

Translation: “And We divided them into twelve tribes, as communities. When his people asked Moses for water, We revealed to Moses: ‘Strike the stone with your staff’; then twelve springs gushed from it. Each group knew its drinking place. We shaded them with cloud and sent down manna and quails upon them: ‘Eat of the good things We have provided you.’ They did not wrong Us, but were wronging themselves.”

Fa-inbajasat in this verse

Here fa-inbajasat describes twelve springs issuing from the stone.

The verb gives the event of emergence and flow. Minhu specifies the source, referring to the stone. Ithnatā ʿashrata supplies the number, while ʿaynan specifies springs.

Grammatically, ithnatā ʿashrata functions as the verb’s subject, and ʿaynan is its accusative specification. The feminine singular verb agrees with the feminine noun ʿayn.

“Then twelve springs gushed from it” conveys both the water’s emergence and the appearance of springs.

Inbajasat does not independently mean “made twelve springs.” Their number and kind come from the following expression.

The verb alone likewise does not specify volume, the breadth of each spring or the water’s pressure.

Ḍaraba and the conjunction fa-

The command is ani iḍrib bi-ʿaṣāka al-ḥajar: “Strike the stone with your staff.”

Fa-inbajasat follows immediately.

The passage does not repeat Moses’s striking the stone in a separate clause. The emergence following the command nevertheless places the event after carrying out the instruction.

Al-Zamakhsharī notes this ellipsis: repeating the strike is unnecessary, since the result indicates that the command was carried out.

The grammatical point helps explain the narrative but does not change B J S. The causal or consequential relationship follows from the whole construction and fa-, rather than the root independently.

Twelve springs and twelve groups

The verse first divides Moses’s people into twelve tribes, then describes twelve springs emerging.

It subsequently states that each group knew its own drinking place.

Water supplies more than a bodily need in the narrative: the different groups’ access to it is also specified.

This does not establish equal spring sizes, precise quotas, ownership rules or the construction of watercourses. The text identifies drinking places without supplying all those details.

5. Comparing fa-inbajasat and fa-infajarat

This is the study’s principal comparison: two surahs describe one event with different verbs.

Al-Baqarah 2:60

وَإِذِ اسْتَسْقَىٰ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ فَقُلْنَا اضْرِبْ بِعَصَاكَ الْحَجَرَ ۖ فَانْفَجَرَتْ مِنْهُ اثْنَتَا عَشْرَةَ عَيْنًا ۖ قَدْ عَلِمَ كُلُّ أُنَاسٍ مَشْرَبَهُمْ ۖ كُلُوا وَاشْرَبُوا مِنْ رِزْقِ اللَّهِ وَلَا تَعْثَوْا فِي الْأَرْضِ مُفْسِدِينَ

wa-idhi istasqā mūsā li-qawmihi fa-qulnā iḍrib bi-ʿaṣāka al-ḥajara fa-infajarat minhu ithnatā ʿashrata ʿaynan qad ʿalima kullu unāsin mashrabahum kulū wa-shrabū min rizqi llāhi wa-lā taʿthaw fī al-arḍi mufsidīna

Translation: “And when Moses asked for water for his people, We said: ‘Strike the stone with your staff’; then twelve springs gushed from it. Each group knew its drinking place. ‘Eat and drink of The God’s provision, and do not act corruptly on earth, spreading disorder.’”

Both passages share Moses, a request for water, the command to strike stone with a staff, twelve springs and the groups knowing their drinking places.

Their expression differs. Al-Baqarah 2:60 has Moses request water for his people; Al-Aʿrāf 7:160 has the people ask Moses. These can be two sides of a single request without requiring separate events.

The difference between inbajasat and infajarat nevertheless deserves separate examination.

First view: inbijās is the beginning, infijār the stronger flow

Some lexicographers and commentators distinguish the force of the water’s emergence.

On Al-Aʿrāf 7:160, al-Baghawī reports a statement attributed to Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ: the water first appears slightly and then the flow expands.

On this reading, inbijās can denote the beginning of emergence and infijār its more extensive flow.

The image is intelligible: water can first appear through a narrow crack, then increase.

There is insufficient evidence, however, to make this an invariable component of both roots’ meanings.

Tabajjus applied to large buckets and abundant food fat shows that the family is not necessarily restricted to small quantities.

Onset followed by expansion can remain a possible interpretation, without asserting that twelve drops or tiny streams first appeared and necessarily became large springs.

Neither passage explicitly gives this sequence.

Second view: inbijās favours emergence from a narrow outlet

Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī proposes another distinction in al-Mufradāt.

He considers inbijās more usual for emergence from a narrow place, while infijār can concern either a narrow or broad outlet.

He thereby explains why both verbs can describe Moses’s stone.

Unlike the first account, this locates the difference principally in the outlet rather than the quantity of water.

It also fits al-Khalīl’s definition involving a split in a waterskin, stone or earth.

Still, a relationship with opening an enclosed outlet does not establish that the actual opening in Al-Aʿrāf 7:160 must have been small.

A narrow outlet is a proposed usage distinction, rather than a measurement of the fissure in Moses’s stone.

Third view: the verbs are synonymous in this setting

Other lexicographers and commentators see no decisive distinction within the story.

Lisān al-ʿArab explains bajastu al-māʾa fa-inbajasa through bringing out water and infijār. Al-Ṭabarī likewise explains the Qur’anic inbijās through the springs flowing and gushing forth.

Al-Zamakhsharī also treats both expressions as sharing the basic emergence and opening of a flow, citing al-ʿAjjāj to illustrate abundant liquid issuing forth.

Their semantic fields therefore overlap extensively in earlier Arabic.

Assessing the distinction

Inbijās particularly suggests an outlet opening and flow appearing, whereas infijār can in some uses emphasize stronger flow and greater spread.

This is not an absolute, unchanging boundary.

The evidence does not justify defining inbijās as invariably small quantities and infijār as invariably large quantities, or constructing a definite chronology from the two surahs’ different verbs alone.

Both can be translated “gushed forth” in Moses’s story. Where a finer distinction is useful, explain the proposed lexical differences in commentary.

This preserves their semantic overlap without dismissing the lexicographers’ proposed distinctions.

6. Distinctions from neighbouring roots

B J S (bajs) and F J R (fajr)

Study of F J R

The families are close in opening an outlet and water flowing.

F J R nevertheless has a broader Qur’anic range. Al-Qamar 54:12 describes springs emerging from the earth, and Al-Kahf 18:33 describes a river made to flow between two gardens.

Fajr also occurs for dawn and the family has ethical uses. These branches require separate attention; a shared water-flow sense does not transfer all of them to B J S.

The closeness of inbijās and infijār in Moses’s story does not make their entire lexical families identical.

B J S (bajs) and N B ʿ (nabʿ)

Study of N B ʿ (Not yet published)

Arabic nabʿ concerns water emerging or welling up, especially from a spring.

Al-Khalīl distinguishes inbijās from nubūʿ, considering the former broader: water can issue from a waterskin or vessel, while nubūʿ particularly concerns a spring’s water welling up.

ʿAynan in Al-Aʿrāf 7:160 identifies the inbijās event as the appearance of water springs.

Nubūʿ and inbijās can therefore describe this event from different perspectives, one concerning the spring and the other the opening and emergence of water.

B J S (bajs) and J R Y (jary)

Study of J R Y

Jary denotes movement or flowing, and can concern water, ships, the sun or other moving things.

Inbijās particularly concerns a flow appearing from an outlet.

Water issuing forth can thus flow, but not every flow is inbijās.

A river already moving along its course can be described by jary. Without the opening of an outlet or the appearance of a flow being in view, inbijās is less directly applicable.

B J S (bajs) and Sh Q Q (shaqq)

Study of Sh Q Q

Shaqq concerns splitting or separating something.

The early definition of bajs also involves a waterskin, earth or stone splitting, but with water emerging.

An opening belongs to the image of liquid issuing forth. Not every split is inbijās.

Translating fa-inbajasat merely “split open” would lose the emergence of water. “Gushed forth” or “issued forth” communicates the event more clearly.

7. Translation proposals for Forqan

A basic explanation of B J S is “an outlet opening and water issuing or flowing forth.”

For transitive bajasa, consider “caused water to issue forth” or “opened an outlet for water.” Inbajasa can be “gushed forth,” “issued forth” or, where appropriate, “flowed out.”

In Al-Aʿrāf 7:160, “then twelve springs gushed from it” is concise, natural and close to the passage.

“Then twelve springs issued from it” likewise conveys emergence.

“A little water seeped out,” “water came out drop by drop” or “a small flow first appeared” add a definite quantity or temporal stage not necessarily supplied by the verb.

Al-Baqarah 2:60 can also have “then twelve springs gushed from it” for fa-infajarat. Identical basic translations for this shared event are not necessarily an error: the semantic overlap is real.

A lexical study or commentary can explain the proposed difference between an outlet opening and stronger flow spreading. It should not insert that distinction as certain into the translation itself.

Nor should modern associations of infijār with an explosive, violent blast be imposed upon fa-infajarat in Al-Baqarah 2:60. The subject there is springs issuing water.

8. Conclusion

B J S occurs once in the Qur’an, as fa-inbajasat in Al-Aʿrāf 7:160.

Its early Arabic core concerns an outlet opening and water emerging. In al-Khalīl’s definition, a split alone is insufficient: water must emerge too.

Usage involving waterskins, buckets, clouds, rain and food liquids shows that the family is not restricted to natural springs.

Qur’anic fa-inbajasat describes twelve springs appearing from stone after the divine command to Moses. The verb gives emergence and flow; the number, outlet and relation to the groups’ drinking places come from other parts of the verse.

Comparison with fa-infajarat in Al-Baqarah 2:60 shows that proposed distinctions of onset, force or narrowness are not certain and universal.

The two expressions alone therefore do not establish a two-stage narrative in which a little water appeared and then suddenly became abundant. Such an interpretation can be proposed, but is not required by the two passages’ wording.

An appropriate final definition for Forqan:

Arabic B J S concerns an outlet opening and water or liquid emerging from an identifiable place. Qur’anic fa-inbajasat describes twelve springs issuing from stone in Moses’s story. It overlaps extensively with infijār, while some lexical analyses emphasize a flow appearing from its outlet. The evidence does not establish a necessary difference in quantity or chronology between inbijās and infijār.