The Qur’anic root B K Y
Weeping and crying: from sorrow and tears to humility, pretence, and mourning
Qur’anic and lexical forms
بَكَىٰ
(bakā)
Form I lexical base; Qur’anic in other inflections
يَبْكُونَ
(yabkūna)
Third-person plural imperfect; two occurrences
وَلْيَبْكُوا
(wa-l-yabkū)
Jussive imperfect with imperative lām; Al-Tawbah 9:82
تَبْكُونَ
(tabkūna)
Second-person plural imperfect; Al-Najm 53:60
بَكَتْ
(bakat)
Feminine singular past; Al-Dukhān 44:29
أَبْكَىٰ
(abkā)
Form IV: caused weeping; Al-Najm 53:43
بُكِيًّا
(bukiyyan)
Plural of bākin; also analysed as a verbal noun; Maryam 19:58
بَاكٍ
(bākin)
Active participle; singular form not Qur’anic
بُكَاء
(bukāʾ)
Extended verbal noun; not Qur’anic
بُكًى
(bukan)
Short verbal noun; not Qur’anic
The Arabic root B K Y refers to weeping, a state that may involve flowing tears, the sound of crying, sorrow, or an emotional response. People may weep at the loss of loved ones, from intense suffering, when confronting an unsettling truth, or through deep emotion. Sometimes a person also displays outward signs of crying without an inward feeling that corresponds to what is being shown.
Weeping is both a perceptible behaviour, whose signs others may see or hear, and something related to a person’s inner state. This relationship is not uniform. Tears may flow from sorrow, joy, fear, or deep emotion. The sound of crying may express strong feeling or be deliberately used to influence others.
The root occurs seven times in the Qur’an. Joseph’s brothers come weeping to their father while their account is untrue. In Al-Isrāʾ and Maryam, weeping accompanies hearing divine signs and falling in prostration. In Al-Dukhān, weeping is attributed to heaven and earth; in Al-Najm, causing laughter and causing weeping are among the acts attributed to The God.
Quranic Arabic Corpus: seven occurrences
These uses show that bukāʾ is neither restricted to sorrow following calamity nor invariably a sign of faith, sincerity, or inward purity. Its lexical meaning is weeping; its cause and value are understood from context.
1. The semantic core in early Arabic
In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris introduces the meaning of weeping in this lexical family through the verb بَكَىٰ يَبْكِي (bakā yabkī). Al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad and other lexicographers also record its two familiar verbal nouns, بُكًى (bukan) and بُكَاء (bukāʾ).
In Arabic, crying may involve tears, sound, or both. Some lexicographers distinguish between the two verbal-noun forms.
Al-Farrāʾ and others explain that بُكَاء (bukāʾ), with final alif and hamzah, more often concerns the sound of crying, resembling words for animal sounds. By contrast, بُكًى (bukan), with alif maqṣūrah, is more closely associated with tears and sorrow.
Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī also reports this distinction but explains that the verb bakā can concern sorrow and the flowing of tears, sometimes both together and sometimes one without the other.
The two forms should therefore not be separated by an absolute rule requiring every bukāʾ to be loud or every bukan to be silent.
The distinction exists in some uses, but the verbal-noun form alone does not settle every instance.
Lisān al-ʿArab: verbal nouns, sound, and tears
What this root family shares is the manifestation of weeping, which may involve tears, lamenting sounds, or sorrow, with its intensity and manner varying according to the situation.
Weeping and sorrow must nevertheless be distinguished. Sorrow may exist without tears or crying. Tears and crying also need not arise from sorrow.
This matters when reading the Qur’an: weeping appears both in situations of suffering and regret and in response to the profound effect of hearing divine signs.
B K Y and the neighbouring root B K ʾ
In the same lexical discussion in Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris introduces another use concerning smallness or diminution.
For example, بَكِيئَة (bakīʾah) describes a she-camel yielding little milk, and بَكَأَ (bakaʾa), or related forms, concerns dwindling milk.
This use should not be equated with weeping.
Hamzah belongs to the structure of the milk-related word, whereas the Qur’anic root studied here is identified by its final yāʾ.
Sharing the first two letters, or having similar written forms, does not by itself establish a semantic or derivational connection between reduced milk and weeping.
The present article therefore centres on weeping; the milk-related branch is not a basis for defining Qur’anic B K Y.
Maqāyīs al-Lughah: weeping and the separate milk-related branch
2. Weeping in early Arabic poetry
Weeping is a familiar image in Arabic poetry, particularly in remembering loved ones, separation, mourning, and returning to places that revive memories of the past.
Imruʾ al-Qays: weeping at the memory of a beloved and a dwelling
The pre-Islamic poet Imruʾ al-Qays begins his celebrated Muʿallaqah with this verse:
قِفَا نَبْكِ مِنْ ذِكْرَىٰ حَبِيبٍ وَمَنْزِلِ
بِسِقْطِ اللِّوَىٰ بَيْنَ الدَّخُولِ فَحَوْمَلِ
qifā nabki min dhikrā ḥabībin wa-manzili / bi-siqṭi al-liwā bayna al-dakhūli fa-ḥawmali
Translation: “Stop, that we may weep at the memory of a beloved and a dwelling at Siqṭ al-Liwā, between Al-Dakhūl and Ḥawmal.”
Here نَبْكِ (nabki) comes from bakā. The poet calls his companions to stop and weep over memories of the past.
Weeping is not restricted here to physical loss or news of death. Separation from the beloved, passing time, and the memory of a changed dwelling provide its setting.
Later in the same ode, the poet speaks of tears flowing from his eyes. The image thus joins recollection and inward sorrow to the perceptible sign of tears.
This witness shows that bakā was an established pre-Qur’anic word for human emotional response, without being confined to religious or ritual situations.
Khizānat al-Adab: the opening of Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqah
Al-Khansāʾ: weeping and mourning
Al-Khansāʾ says in mourning for her brother Ṣakhr:
أَعَيْنَيَّ جُودَا وَلَا تَجْمُدَا
أَلَا تَبْكِيَانِ لِصَخْرِ النَّدَىٰ
a-ʿaynayya jūdā wa-lā tajmudā / a-lā tabkiyāni li-Ṣakhri al-nadā
Translation: “O my two eyes, pour forth tears and do not remain dry; will you not weep for generous Ṣakhr?”
Here تَبْكِيَانِ (tabkiyāni) describes the weeping of the two eyes, alongside جُودَا (jūdā) and لَا تَجْمُدَا (lā tajmudā).
The image is clear: the poet asks her eyes to shed tears rather than remain dry.
Weeping is connected with the sorrow of losing a loved one, expressed poetically as an address to the eyes.
This shows that Arabic can attribute the verb of weeping directly to the eyes. Such an attribution is familiar in natural speech and poetry; it does not assign the eyes a will independent of the person.
Al-Khansāʾ is a mukhaḍram poet, whose life spanned the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. Although much of her life belongs to the earlier period, the date of each particular verse requires separate examination. The linguistic witness is useful, but the poet’s biography alone does not establish its precise date.
Al-Khansāʾ’s poetry: A-ʿaynayya jūdā wa-lā tajmudā
Weeping, tears, and the sound of lamentation
In Arabic poetry, weeping sometimes appears with دَمْع (damʿ), tears; عَبْرَة (ʿabrah), a tear or emotionally moved weeping; and عَوِيل (ʿawīl), wailing or lamentation.
These words are close in meaning but are not identical.
Damʿ denotes tears themselves; bukāʾ expresses weeping; ʿawīl more particularly concerns the loud sound of lamentation.
A person may shed tears without making a loud sound. Wailing, meanwhile, may be audibly expressed.
Their association in poetry shows the range of weeping, but all their features should not be compressed into the brief definition of B K Y.
3. Morphological forms and their different functions
بَكَىٰ (bakā) is a Form I past verb, and يَبْكِي (yabkī) its imperfect. This root belongs to the final-yāʾ weak verbs, whose last letter changes in spelling and sound in certain forms.
The Qur’an uses يَبْكُونَ (yabkūna), وَلْيَبْكُوا (wa-l-yabkū), تَبْكُونَ (tabkūna), and بَكَتْ (bakat) from this verb.
Yabkūna and tabkūna are plural imperfect verbs: in the passages considered, the first is third-person plural and the second second-person plural.
Wa-l-yabkū contains the conjunction wāw and the imperative lām. The lām alone does not determine whether the sentence commands worship or expresses threat, rebuke, or consequences; context establishes that difference.
Bakat is a feminine singular past verb. In Al-Dukhān it occurs with the subject السَّمَاءُ وَالْأَرْضُ (al-samāʾu wa-al-arḍu), heaven and earth.
In Form IV, أَبْكَىٰ (abkā) is causative: caused weeping or made someone weep.
The morphological difference matters: bakā expresses weeping itself, whereas abkā expresses causing it.
بَاكٍ (bākin) is the active participle, describing someone weeping. Its Arabic plural can be بَاكُونَ (bākūna).
Lexical and grammatical sources also record بُكِيّ (bukiyy) as a plural of bākin. Its structure is compared with plurals such as سُجُود (sujūd) and قُعُود (quʿūd), and its sound change is explained through the meeting of wāw and yāʾ.
Another analysis treats bukiyy as a verbal noun denoting weeping itself.
This difference matters in Maryam 19:58. Whether the word is read as a plural of bākin or as a verbal noun, the sentence describes falling down accompanied by weeping.
4. Weeping in Joseph’s story: outward behaviour and truthful speech
Yūsuf 12:16
Verse text:
وَجَاءُوا أَبَاهُمْ عِشَاءً يَبْكُونَ
wa-jāʾū abāhum ʿishāʾan yabkūna
Translation:
“And they came weeping to their father in the evening.”
This verse concerns Joseph’s brothers.
After separating Joseph from his father, they return in the evening and present themselves weeping.
Yabkūna is an imperfect verb describing their state as they arrive. The sentence says that they came to their father in a state of weeping.
The following verses make clear that their account of Joseph’s fate was untrue.
In Yūsuf 12:17 they claim that a wolf ate Joseph; in Yūsuf 12:18 they bring his shirt bearing false blood.
Their outward weeping thus does not accord with the truth of the story.
Were their tears fabricated?
The story makes clear that Joseph’s brothers constructed a false account to conceal their deed.
Two different claims must nevertheless be distinguished.
First, they came weeping to their father and used that display while telling an untrue story.
Second, no real tears flowed from their eyes and they artificially produced every sign of crying.
The context supports the first claim. The verse does not specify whether each individual tear was real or fabricated.
Someone may shed real tears while their actual reason differs from the explanation given to others. Someone may also deliberately imitate crying sounds or an appearance of sorrow.
The Qur’anic text does not settle every such detail.
The base translation should therefore retain “came weeping,” with a separate explanation that their weeping formed part of deceiving their father and concealing the truth.
This is among the clearest Qur’anic examples showing that weeping by itself does not prove truthful speech or pure intentions.
Nor should the episode make every weeping person suspect or deceitful. It shows only that judging a statement’s truth cannot be reduced to emotional signs.
5. Weeping when hearing the signs: deep emotion and humility
In two verses, weeping accompanies hearing divine signs and falling in prostration.
Al-Isrāʾ 17:109
Verse text:
وَيَخِرُّونَ لِلْأَذْقَانِ يَبْكُونَ وَيَزِيدُهُمْ خُشُوعًا
wa-yakhirrūna li-al-adhqāni yabkūna wa-yazīduhum khushūʿan
Translation:
“And they fall upon their chins, weeping, and it increases them in humility.”
Weeping here accompanies falling down and increased humility.
Understanding the passage requires attention to the preceding verses.
Al-Isrāʾ 17:107 and Al-Isrāʾ 17:108 describe those who have been given knowledge, their response when the Qur’an is recited, and their declaration of their Lord’s transcendence.
Al-Isrāʾ 17:109 then describes them weeping.
Their weeping follows hearing and receiving words that affect them profoundly.
The word yabkūna itself, however, does not mean faith, knowledge, or humility.
It describes weeping as an act or emotional state. خُشُوعًا (khushūʿan) comes from the independent root KH SH ʿ, which expresses humility and submission in this setting.
Their association matters, but the two words are not synonyms.
A person may weep from sorrow or pain without the subject being humility before The God. Conversely, a person may be deeply humble without shedding tears at that moment.
The verse describes a particular group whose response brings weeping and humility together.
Maryam 19:58
Verse text:
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ مِنَ النَّبِيِّينَ مِنْ ذُرِّيَّةِ آدَمَ وَمِمَّنْ حَمَلْنَا مَعَ نُوحٍ وَمِنْ ذُرِّيَّةِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْرَائِيلَ وَمِمَّنْ هَدَيْنَا وَاجْتَبَيْنَا ۚ إِذَا تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتُ الرَّحْمَٰنِ خَرُّوا سُجَّدًا وَبُكِيًّا
ulāʾika alladhīna anʿama Allāhu ʿalayhim mina al-nabiyyīna min dhurriyyati Ādama wa-mimman ḥamalnā maʿa Nūḥin wa-min dhurriyyati Ibrāhīma wa-Isrāʾīla wa-mimman hadaynā wa-ijtabaynā idhā tutlā ʿalayhim āyātu al-Raḥmāni kharrū sujjadan wa-bukiyyan
Translation:
“Those were the prophets upon whom The God bestowed favour: descendants of Adam, of those We carried with Noah, and descendants of Abraham and Israel, and those We guided and chose. When the signs of the Entirely Merciful were recited to them, they fell down prostrating and weeping.”
This verse follows the mention of several prophets and guided figures.
Its conclusion describes their response to hearing the signs of the Entirely Merciful: falling in prostration and weeping.
سُجَّدًا (sujjadan) is a plural describing those prostrating. In the familiar grammatical analysis, بُكِيًّا (bukiyyan) is also a plural of bākin: those weeping.
The sentence can thus be understood as their falling down in a state of prostration and weeping.
Some grammarians also treat bukiyyan as a verbal noun. This does not decisively change the basic meaning, since both analyses place weeping alongside prostration.
Al-Mufradāt and Al-Miṣbāḥ: plural of bākin and the causative form
This use is especially helpful: Qur’anic weeping does not always signal defeat, helplessness, or calamity. It can respond to hearing the signs, recognising one’s place, and being deeply moved before the Lord.
The verse does not say that everyone who sheds no tears during Qur’an recitation lacks humility or faith.
Nor does it instruct people to cry before others to prove their religious commitment.
It describes the response of people whom the Qur’an identifies as guided and chosen.
The passage shows a positive relationship between weeping, deep emotion, and humility; it does not make one outward sign an absolute measure of everyone’s worth.
6. Weeping, deprivation, and regret
Al-Tawbah 9:82
Verse text:
فَلْيَضْحَكُوا قَلِيلًا وَلْيَبْكُوا كَثِيرًا جَزَاءً بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ
fa-l-yaḍḥakū qalīlan wa-l-yabkū kathīran jazāʾan bi-mā kānū yaksibūna
Translation:
“So let them laugh a little and weep much, as recompense for what they used to earn.”
Wa-l-yabkū stands opposite fa-l-yaḍḥakū in this verse.
Laughing and weeping are different behaviours, used here to express a contrast between joy and suffering.
That contrast must remain within its context.
The preceding verses describe a group pleased to remain behind instead of accompanying the Messenger, preferring their own comfort. Al-Tawbah 9:81 speaks of their delight at staying seated rather than going out.
Al-Tawbah 9:82 continues this setting by speaking of little laughter and much weeping.
Does the verse command people to laugh less?
Morphologically, fa-l-yaḍḥakū and wa-l-yabkū contain the imperative lām.
An imperative form does not invariably command an act of worship or a desirable behaviour.
Here it can express threat, rebuke, or the outcome awaiting the group concerned.
Their present joy will be small, and their deeds will bring them much sorrow and weeping.
The verse should therefore not become a general command requiring everyone to laugh little and weep much throughout life.
Nor should qalīlan and kathīran be converted without evidence into a fixed number of occasions of laughter or crying.
Their contrast can emphasise the smallness of present pleasure beside abundant future sorrow and regret.
The lexical meaning of bukāʾ remains weeping; its sentence function is to express the blameworthy outcome of the group whose conduct the preceding verses explain.
Tears of deprivation without the root B K Y
Al-Tawbah 9:92 describes people who came to the Messenger wishing to accompany and participate, but for whom no means of transport could be found.
They turn back with their eyes shedding tears from sorrow because they lack the necessary resources.
B K Y does not occur there. The flowing of tears is expressed through F Y Ḍ and the word دَمْع (damʿ).
The comparison matters.
In Al-Tawbah 9:82, weeping appears in a warning about recompense for people who refused to accompany the Messenger.
In Al-Tawbah 9:92, the tears belong to people who wanted to accompany him but lacked the means.
Tears and weeping thus have no single fixed moral judgement. What matters is their cause, the person’s choice and conduct, and the actual circumstances.
7. Aḍḥaka wa-abkā: causing laughter and weeping
Al-Najm 53:43
Verse text:
وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَضْحَكَ وَأَبْكَىٰ
wa-annahu huwa aḍḥaka wa-abkā
Translation:
“And that it is He who caused laughter and caused weeping.”
The causative verbs أَضْحَكَ (aḍḥaka) and أَبْكَىٰ (abkā) occur together.
The first belongs to Ḍ Ḥ K; the second to B K Y.
Both are Form IV verbs, expressing causing laughter and causing weeping.
The central point is that the verse does not say The God laughs or weeps; it says that He causes laughter and weeping.
Translation must preserve this distinction between an intransitive and a causative verb.
The surah goes on to attribute other acts to The God, including causing death and giving life in Al-Najm 53:44.
Causing laughter and weeping thus appears among statements about divine power and governance in human life.
Weeping and divine agency
Abkā places causing weeping, or the coming about of weeping, within the scope of The God’s act and power.
The sentence alone does not eliminate every immediate or natural cause of crying.
A person may weep after hearing news, witnessing an event, or remembering the past. Such causes exist in actual life; attributing laughter and weeping to The God does not necessarily deny all intermediate and natural factors.
Nor does the verse imply divine moral approval of every false statement, oppressive act, or deception accompanied by weeping.
Joseph’s brothers also came weeping to their father, but their actions were not approved.
An event’s occurrence in the world and the moral value of associated behaviour are different matters.
The Al-Najm verse attributes causing laughter and weeping to The God; it does not separately pronounce every instance of either sincere or legitimate.
8. Weeping contrasted with laughter and neglect of truth
Al-Najm 53:60
Verse text:
وَتَضْحَكُونَ وَلَا تَبْكُونَ
wa-taḍḥakūna wa-lā tabkūna
Translation:
“And you laugh and do not weep.”
This continues a question and rebuke beginning in Al-Najm 53:59.
Al-Najm 53:59 questions the audience’s astonishment at the discourse. Al-Najm 53:60 mentions their laughter and lack of weeping. Al-Najm 53:61 describes their state as سَامِدُونَ (sāmidūn), and Al-Najm 53:62 calls them to prostration and worship.
Within this setting, the contrast concerns the audience’s response to truth.
B K Y still means weeping; it should not be translated directly as believing, understanding, or fearing the Hereafter.
Laughter is not blameworthy in every circumstance: Al-Najm 53:43 attributes causing laughter and weeping alike to The God.
Al-Najm 53:60 therefore does not establish a universal judgement that laughter is bad.
What is criticised is a response situated within an encounter with divine discourse.
Three Qur’anic uses of Ḍ Ḥ K and B K Y make the difference clear.
In Al-Tawbah 9:82, little laughter and much weeping concern the outcome awaiting a particular group.
In Al-Najm 53:43, causing laughter and weeping are attributed to The God.
In Al-Najm 53:60, laughter contrasted with weeping forms part of a rebuke of an audience whose response does not match the seriousness of the discourse.
The roots’ lexical meanings are therefore more stable than the varying evaluations found in each context.
9. Do heaven and earth weep?
Al-Dukhān 44:29
Verse text:
فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالْأَرْضُ وَمَا كَانُوا مُنْظَرِينَ
fa-mā bakat ʿalayhimu al-samāʾu wa-al-arḍu wa-mā kānū munẓarīna
Translation:
“So heaven and earth did not weep over them, nor were they given respite.”
This verse follows the destruction of Pharaoh and his people.
The preceding verses describe the gardens, springs, cultivated fields, honoured places, and comforts they left behind.
Al-Dukhān 44:29 then says that heaven and earth did not weep over them.
Bakat retains the root meaning of weeping, but its subject is not human.
This raises a significant question about Qur’anic language: is it literal weeping by heaven and earth, or an expression of absent mourning and the lack of a worthy place in remembrance?
Weeping as an image of mourning
In poetry and literary speech, grief at an event can be presented as so great that earth, heaven, or the whole world seems to share in mourning.
Such language magnifies the standing of the deceased or the gravity of a calamity.
Conversely, saying that heaven and earth did not weep over someone can express the absence of mourning and of a praiseworthy standing.
This reading accords with the destruction of Pharaoh and his people.
They possessed great power and comforts, but the Qur’an describes their destruction through heaven and earth’s lack of weeping, rather than through cosmic mourning.
On this reading, the expression goes beyond a physical absence of tears: their destruction is not presented as a loss over which heaven and earth mourn.
Is a literal reading also possible?
Some early explanations understand the weeping of heaven and earth literally.
Reports speak of a person’s place of worship on earth and the place where their deeds ascend in heaven weeping over them.
Other explanations identify redness at the horizon as a manifestation of heaven’s weeping.
Reporting these accounts is different from establishing the verse’s direct meaning.
The verse itself does not explain how heaven and earth weep, what their tears look like, or how long such weeping lasts.
The expression alone therefore cannot establish a definite theory about a physical phenomenon in heaven or earth.
Conversely, the difference between heaven and earth and humans does not by itself justify categorically denying every possibility of a response within creation, without examining other verses.
Elsewhere the Qur’an speaks of creatures and created phenomena declaring praise, including Al-Isrāʾ 17:44. That verse alone, however, does not imply that all things shed tears or weep exactly as humans do.
Established linguistic meaning, philosophical possibility, and definite claims about the manner of occurrence must therefore be distinguished.
In Al-Dukhān, a reading about mourning, and its absence at the destruction of an oppressive group, is linguistically and contextually defensible. A reading involving an actual response by heaven and earth can be considered only insofar as Qur’anic evidence supports it, without adding unverified details.
Al-Ṭabarī: reports concerning heaven and earth’s weeping
The meaning of bakat ʿalayhim
The preposition عَلَىٰ (ʿalā) occurs here with the verb of weeping.
Arabic بَكَىٰ عَلَيْهِ (bakā ʿalayhi) can mean weeping or mourning over someone.
The sentence therefore concerns weeping or mourning over Pharaoh and his people, rather than heaven and earth weeping for their own sake.
The distinction matters in translation.
The connection to them in فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالْأَرْضُ (fa-mā bakat ʿalayhimu al-samāʾu wa-al-arḍu) must be retained, rather than reduced to “heaven and earth did not weep.”
“Heaven and earth did not weep over them” is consequently natural and faithful to the sentence. Mourning, or the possibility of a nonhuman response, belongs in the explanation of the verse.
11. Translation proposals for Forqan
“Weeping” and “crying” are the principal natural equivalents for this root.
For بَكَىٰ (bakā), “wept” is appropriate.
For يَبْكُونَ (yabkūna), “they weep” or “weeping” may fit, depending on the sentence.
For أَبْكَىٰ (abkā), “made someone weep” or “caused weeping” is appropriate.
بَاكٍ (bākin) can be rendered “weeping”; for بُكِيًّا (bukiyyan) in Maryam 19:58, “weeping” suits the construction.
بُكَاء (bukāʾ) can be translated “weeping,” or “weeping and wailing” when an audible cry is prominent in context.
Verse-by-verse equivalents
Al-Tawbah 9:82
«وَلْيَبْكُوا كَثِيرًا»
wa-l-yabkū kathīran
“And let them weep much.”
The full translation should retain the warning and rebuke, without converting the expression into a general command to cry.
Yūsuf 12:16
«وَجَاءُوا أَبَاهُمْ عِشَاءً يَبْكُونَ»
wa-jāʾū abāhum ʿishāʾan yabkūna
“And they came weeping to their father in the evening.”
“They were pretending to cry” should not replace yabkūna in the base translation. Their deception is understood from context and should be explained separately.
Al-Isrāʾ 17:109
«وَيَخِرُّونَ لِلْأَذْقَانِ يَبْكُونَ»
wa-yakhirrūna li-al-adhqāni yabkūna
“And they fall upon their chins, weeping.”
Weeping and humility occur together, but yabkūna itself should not become “they show humility.”
Maryam 19:58
«خَرُّوا سُجَّدًا وَبُكِيًّا»
kharrū sujjadan wa-bukiyyan
“They fell down prostrating and weeping.”
This retains both prostration and weeping.
Al-Dukhān 44:29
«فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالْأَرْضُ»
fa-mā bakat ʿalayhimu al-samāʾu wa-al-arḍu
“So heaven and earth did not weep over them.”
The image of weeping remains in the translation; mourning or another possible reading is examined in the explanation.
Al-Najm 53:43
«وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَضْحَكَ وَأَبْكَىٰ»
wa-annahu huwa aḍḥaka wa-abkā
“And that it is He who caused laughter and caused weeping.”
The difference between the causative verb and laughing or weeping oneself must be preserved.
Al-Najm 53:60
«وَتَضْحَكُونَ وَلَا تَبْكُونَ»
wa-taḍḥakūna wa-lā tabkūna
“And you laugh and do not weep.”
The verbs retain their contrast, while the reason for the rebuke is explained from the surrounding verses.
In none of these uses should bukāʾ become repentance, faith, hypocrisy, calamity, regret, humility, or mourning without justification.
These ideas can be associated with weeping, but they are not the direct meaning of every occurrence of the root.
12. Conclusion
Arabic B K Y denotes weeping, which may involve flowing tears, crying sounds, and emotional response. Lexical sources distinguish sound and tears in different verbal-noun forms, but these distinctions do not impose an absolute boundary on every use.
The Qur’an uses the root seven times in different situations.
In Joseph’s story, weeping accompanies an untrue account. This shows that outward crying alone cannot establish the truth of a person’s intention or speech.
In Al-Isrāʾ and Maryam, weeping accompanies hearing divine signs, prostration, and humility. It expresses the profound effect of divine discourse on those whom the Qur’an describes as guided.
In Al-Tawbah, weeping is contrasted with laughter as recompense for a particular group’s behaviour. In Al-Najm, causing laughter and weeping are attributed to The God; elsewhere in the same surah, laughing instead of weeping occurs in a rebuke of the audience.
In Al-Dukhān, weeping is attributed to heaven and earth. This can be understood through the language of mourning and the absence of a loss worthy of mourning; the manner of heaven and earth’s response should not be reduced to a particular physical phenomenon on the basis of this expression alone.
The root’s central meaning remains throughout, but the word itself determines neither the cause of weeping nor its value.
Final root definition: B K Y denotes weeping: the manifestation of a state that may involve tears, lamenting sounds, or sorrow and emotional response. In its causative form, it expresses making someone weep or causing weeping.
The root’s distinguishing feature is weeping itself, rather than its cause or a moral judgement of the person weeping.
Weeping can therefore express real sorrow, being moved by truth, regret and helplessness, or form part of deceptive behaviour. Each case must be understood through the person’s speech, conduct, and circumstances: not every tear proves faith and sincerity, nor does every dry eye prove an absence of sorrow or humility.