The Qur’anic Root B KH S (bakhs)
Reducing a due or value: from short delivery in trade and Joseph’s sale to justice in recompensing deeds
Qur’anic and lexical forms
يَبْخَسْ
(yabkhas)
Form I jussive imperfect, third-person singular; Al-Baqarah 2:282
تَبْخَسُوا
(tabkhasū)
Form I jussive imperfect in prohibitions, second-person plural; three Qur’anic occurrences
يُبْخَسُونَ
(yubkhasūna)
Passive form I imperfect, third-person plural; Hūd 11:15
بَخْسٍ
(bakhsin)
Verbal noun used adjectivally to describe a price; Yūsuf 12:20
بَخْسًا
(bakhsan)
Accusative noun; Al-Jinn 72:13
بَخَسَ
(bakhasa)
Lexical base perfect; this form itself is not Qur’anic
بَخَّسَ
(bakhkhasa)
Lexical form II describing physical depletion; not Qur’anic
1. Introducing the root and its Qur’anic forms
Arabic B KH S concerns reducing, giving less and making something deficient. Applied to another person’s due or a value that should be respected, this becomes injustice or deprivation. Thamanun bakhsun describes a low price below the appropriate value; bakhasahu ḥaqqahu describes diminishing someone’s due.
The root occurs seven times in seven verses across six surahs: five verbal occurrences and two nominal or adjectival uses.
Its Qur’anic forms are:
- Yabkhas in Al-Baqarah 2:282;
- tabkhasū in Al-Aʿrāf 7:85, Hūd 11:85 and Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:183;
- yubkhasūna in Hūd 11:15;
- bakhsin in Yūsuf 12:20;
- bakhsan in Al-Jinn 72:13.
All verbal occurrences are form I. Yubkhasūna is passive, and the three tabkhasū occurrences are prohibitions. Bakhsin describes the transaction’s price in Joseph’s story, while bakhsan in Al-Jinn is an accusative noun concerning diminution or deprivation. Structurally, bakhs is a verbal noun used adjectivally to describe thaman in Yūsuf 12:20; that adjectival function does not turn the word’s form into an active or passive participle.
The family notably extends beyond markets and measuring goods. The Qur’an uses it in recording debt, trade, selling a person, recompensing deeds and the believer’s confidence in divine justice.
This range must not reduce every occurrence to an abstract notion such as injustice. The core is reducing or giving less; the sentence and context identify its ethical direction and what is diminished.
2. The semantic core in earlier Arabic
Reducing, making deficient and withholding a due
In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris introduces the root’s basic meaning with one word:
«النَّقْصُ»
al-naqṣu
That is, deficiency or diminution. He then cites thamanin bakhsin in Joseph’s story as an example.
This concise definition is a useful starting point, but does not explain every Qur’anic use by itself. Not every decrease is bakhs: something may diminish naturally without a right being violated. When someone reduces another’s due or share, however, diminution is accompanied by injustice.
Lisān al-ʿArab explains the relationship through bakhasahu ḥaqqahu: diminishing another’s due rather than giving it in full. In contexts of people’s rights, it treats bakhs as a kind of injustice, as when a measurer reduces the amount delivered.
Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī likewise defines bakhs in al-Mufradāt as diminishing something unjustly, citing Qur’anic uses involving people’s dues and recompensing deeds.
Together these witnesses distinguish two levels: diminution generally, and in ethical or rights contexts, a reduction that deprives someone of a due or disregards a value.
The levels should not be completely separated. Diminishing someone’s due remains a reduction, but its wrongfulness becomes clear from the verb’s object and the relationship between the people involved.
Being less and giving less than is due
Suppose a seller owes ten measures of wheat but knowingly delivers nine and counts them as ten. The seller has done more than supply less produce: they have reduced the due they were obliged to fulfil.
This is a clear example of bakhs.
If drought instead reduces a farm’s harvest compared with last year, there is diminution, but not necessarily bakhs in its ethical sense. A decrease in quantity cannot by itself be called injustice without someone’s due being at issue.
In dealings and people’s rights, bakhs therefore foregrounds giving less of what should properly be rendered.
Bakhasa al-mīzān is accordingly recorded for reducing weight, and bakhasahu ḥaqqahu for failing to deliver someone’s due in full. Their objects differ, but the semantic core is shared.
3. Earlier Arabic uses and the family’s range
Trade and setting a price
In commercial language, thamanun bakhsun describes a paltry price or one below the expected value. Lisān al-ʿArab explains it as a price below what is desired or appropriate.
Conversely, lā bakhsa fīhi wa-lā shaṭaṭ describes a moderate transaction: neither wrongful diminution nor excess.
This expression places bakhs in trade against proper measure and fairness.
Not every low price is nevertheless ethical wrongdoing. A seller may willingly sell cheaply, or market conditions may reduce a price. Cheapness alone establishes neither deception nor injustice.
The ethical and rights sense is clearer where deception, coercion, concealment or exploitation of another’s vulnerability disregards their property’s value or their due.
These are intelligible applications in trade, rather than necessary components of the word’s lexical definition.
Wrongful exactions
Lexical sources sometimes also use bakhs for wrongfully taking people’s property.
In Asās al-Balāghah, al-Zamakhsharī records expressions involving exactions and wrongful payments imposed on people. What is diminished here is not the amount of goods they should receive, but their property through an unjust taking.
Bakhs can therefore concern both failing to give what is due and wrongfully taking what belongs to someone else.
The lexicons also transmit a poetic line to this effect:
«وَفِي كُلِّ أَسْوَاقِ الْعِرَاقِ إِتَاوَةٌ وَفِي كُلِّ مَا بَاعَ امْرُؤٌ بَخْسُ دِرْهَمِ»
wa-fī kulli aswāqi al-ʿirāqi itāwatun wa-fī kulli mā bāʿa imruʾun bakhsu dirhami
Translation: “In every market of Iraq there is a levy, and from everything someone sells, a dirham is wrongfully taken.”
The line requires caution about wording and attribution. Asās al-Balāghah quotes the bakhs version without naming a poet; other transmissions, including al-Jāḥiẓ’s Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, attribute a maks version to Jābir ibn Ḥunayy. The variant wording and differences in the transmitted poet’s name must be retained. The bakhs wording cannot therefore be presented unreservedly as a securely established pre-Islamic witness.
Its relevance here is an attested usage concerning wrongful taking from people’s property, rather than proof of exactly when that meaning arose.
Physical depletion
Ibn Fāris records another use: بَخَّسَ الْمُخُّ تَبْخِيسًا, bakhkhasa al-mukhkhu tabkhīsan, concerning marrow becoming depleted.
It describes marrow decreasing with severe weakness and emaciation. The lexical explanation mentions its remaining only in locations named al-sulāmā and al-ʿayn. These belong to that earlier description, rather than the definition of the root itself.
No deprivation of rights or injustice is involved. The description concerns severe depletion of bodily material and a small remainder in the named locations, rather than necessarily asserting its total absence throughout the body.
This helps establish the semantic boundary: diminution is more basic and broader than deprivation of rights. The physical usage must nevertheless not become an asserted historical origin for every other sense.
Other restricted uses
Lisān al-ʿArab also records bakhs for land or crops dependent on rainfall. It transmits a usage for injuring an eye as well, although some lexicographers prefer the form with ṣād in that sense.
These meanings do not occur in the Qur’an. Their historical relationship with diminution is insufficiently established to support a definite conclusion, so a single physical image should not be imposed on all of them.
The sources examined did not establish a poetic witness with sufficient attribution and dating to demonstrate the principal bakhs sense securely before Islam. This limitation does not deny the word’s earlier use; it prevents treating uncertain or later poetry as definite evidence before the Qur’an.
4. Wa-lā tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum: people’s dues in Shuʿayb’s address
Three of the seven occurrences appear in Shuʿayb’s address. Repeating this expression across three surahs makes depriving people of their things and dues a prominent concern in his call.
Al-Aʿrāf 7:85
وَإِلَىٰ مَدْيَنَ أَخَاهُمْ شُعَيْبًا ۗ قَالَ يَا قَوْمِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مَا لَكُمْ مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ غَيْرُهُ ۖ قَدْ جَاءَتْكُمْ بَيِّنَةٌ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ ۖ فَأَوْفُوا الْكَيْلَ وَالْمِيزَانَ وَلَا تَبْخَسُوا النَّاسَ أَشْيَاءَهُمْ وَلَا تُفْسِدُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ بَعْدَ إِصْلَاحِهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكُمْ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ
wa-ilā madyana akhāhum shuʿayban qāla yā qawmi uʿbudū llāha mā lakum min ilāhin ghayruhu qad jāʾatkum bayyinatun min rabbikum fa-awfū al-kayla wa-l-mīzāna wa-lā tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum wa-lā tufsidū fī al-arḍi baʿda iṣlāḥihā dhālikum khayrun lakum in kuntum muʾminīna
Translation: “And to Midian We sent their brother Shuʿayb. He said: ‘My people, worship The God; you have no deity other than Him. Clear evidence has come to you from your Lord. Give full measure and weight, and do not diminish people’s things; do not spread corruption on earth after its restoration. That is better for you, if you are believers.’”
The command to give full measure and weight stands beside the prohibition of diminishing people’s things, followed by a broader command against corruption on earth.
This concerns more than a small measurement error: the verse addresses behaviours affecting people’s dues and the soundness of social relationships.
The grammatical roles of al-nāsa and ashyāʾahum
Bakhasa takes two objects in tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum.
Al-nāsa identifies those deprived of a due or something belonging to them; ashyāʾahum identifies what is diminished.
The sentence thus identifies both the holders of the due and what it concerns.
Ashyāʾ, plural of shayʾ, is broader than a measure, weight or particular commodity. The commercial setting nevertheless makes property, goods and transaction-related dues clear instances.
“Do not diminish people’s things” stays close to the wording. “Do not deprive people of what is due in their things” makes the rights dimension clearer, although “due” is not a separately stated word in that phrase.
Is the prohibition restricted to weights and measures?
Hūd 11:85
وَيَا قَوْمِ أَوْفُوا الْمِكْيَالَ وَالْمِيزَانَ بِالْقِسْطِ ۖ وَلَا تَبْخَسُوا النَّاسَ أَشْيَاءَهُمْ وَلَا تَعْثَوْا فِي الْأَرْضِ مُفْسِدِينَ
wa-yā qawmi awfū al-mikyāla wa-l-mīzāna bi-l-qisṭi wa-lā tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum wa-lā taʿthaw fī al-arḍi mufsidīna
Translation: “And my people, give full measure and weight with justice; do not diminish people’s things, and do not act corruptly on earth, spreading disorder.”
Bi-l-qisṭ, “with justice,” particularly emphasizes fairness in giving full measure and weight.
Restricting bakhs to short measure or weight would overlook the breadth of ashyāʾahum. Besides quantities of goods, the prohibition can include diminishing another’s value or due in a transaction.
Someone might weigh goods accurately but deceive their seller or conceal information to induce an unjust price. The weight is correct, yet the owner’s due may have been violated.
Bakhs is therefore broader than short delivery in its narrow sense.
This does not automatically make every price difference, negotiation or unequal profit bakhs. Assessing injustice requires examining entitlement, consent, knowledge and the transaction’s actual circumstances.
The repeated prohibition in Al-Shuʿarāʾ
Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:183
وَلَا تَبْخَسُوا النَّاسَ أَشْيَاءَهُمْ وَلَا تَعْثَوْا فِي الْأَرْضِ مُفْسِدِينَ
wa-lā tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum wa-lā taʿthaw fī al-arḍi mufsidīna
Translation: “Do not diminish people’s things, and do not act corruptly on earth, spreading disorder.”
The preceding verses, Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:181 and Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:182, speak of full measure and weighing with an accurate balance.
The three surahs thus share full measure, respect for people’s dues and avoidance of corruption.
Repeating ashyāʾahum beside these commands prevents reducing people’s dues to a commodity’s outward number or quantity alone.
Conversely, the breadth of “things” does not permit adding any chosen philosophical or ethical value to the verse’s direct meaning without evidence. Reputation, workers’ rights, scholarly trust and judicial fairness may relate ethically to avoiding deprivation, but each application needs its own supporting reasoning and evidence.
In Shuʿayb’s address, bakhs thus means wrongfully diminishing people’s things or dues, through inaccurate measurement or another means of depriving them.
5. Debt, valuation and recompensing deeds
A. Al-Baqarah 2:282: diminution in recording a debt
Al-Baqarah 2:282 concerns documenting a debt with a fixed term and writing it justly.
The person owing the due is to dictate it and be mindful of their Lord; yabkhas instructs them not to diminish any of it.
Minhu here refers to the due owed by the debtor, while shayʾan covers any amount of it. The prohibition includes even a small shortfall, not merely a large reduction.
Suppose someone owes a thousand monetary units but dictates only nine hundred when the document is recorded. Altering the amount diminishes a due they owe.
This is a clear instance of bakhs in documenting debt.
Unlike Shuʿayb’s address, the shortfall occurs in stating and recording a financial obligation rather than delivering goods. The root is therefore not restricted to short delivery in a market.
The verse also addresses just writing, testimony and avoiding harm to a scribe or witness. The prohibition forms part of instructions protecting dues in financial relationships.
All rules about scribes, witnesses and documents do not come from bakhs itself. Its contribution is prohibiting a reduction in the due to be recorded and fulfilled.
B. Yūsuf 12:20: a paltry price and human value
Yūsuf 12:20
وَشَرَوْهُ بِثَمَنٍ بَخْسٍ دَرَاهِمَ مَعْدُودَةٍ وَكَانُوا فِيهِ مِنَ الزَّاهِدِينَ
wa-sharawhu bi-thamanin bakhsin darāhima maʿdūdatin wa-kānū fīhi mina al-zāhidīna
Translation: “They sold him for a paltry price, a few counted dirhams, and had little desire for him.”
Bakhsin is a verbal noun used adjectivally to describe thamanin. On the diminution interpretation, the expression denotes a paltry or undervalued price; sources also transmit an interpretation in terms of injustice and wrongfulness.
Darāhima maʿdūdah also foregrounds the small price. Wa-kānū fīhi mina al-zāhidīn indicates the sellers’ lack of interest in Joseph.
The passage nevertheless concerns more than pricing a commodity, since the person sold is a human being.
Lexical and exegetical sources offer two main accounts of thamanin bakhsin. Some emphasize the low price; others, including al-Zajjāj, also explain bakhs through the wrongful sale of a free person.
These points must be distinguished.
The proposed “paltry price” conveys the price’s diminution. Interpreting bakhs as injustice or an unlawful price is nevertheless also attested in lexical and exegetical sources, and must not be dismissed as merely external to interpreting the word. Ethically, selling a human being raises issues beyond a fair or unfair price: paying more for Joseph would not necessarily have made the act just.
The verse does not state the exact number of dirhams. Some exegetical reports mention twenty, twenty-two or forty, but none of these numbers appears in the verse. “Counted dirhams” is sufficient in context to portray a small price.
Another confusion must be avoided: sharawhu here means selling him, rather than buying him. The sellers’ precise identity must also be examined through the narrative, not inferred from bakhs alone.
Bakhs therefore describes the transaction’s price, with both diminution and wrongfulness transmitted as interpretations. The word alone nevertheless does not express the entire question of Joseph’s human value or the legitimacy of selling him.
C. Hūd 11:15: no diminution of deeds’ recompense in worldly life
Hūd 11:15
مَنْ كَانَ يُرِيدُ الْحَيَاةَ الدُّنْيَا وَزِينَتَهَا نُوَفِّ إِلَيْهِمْ أَعْمَالَهُمْ فِيهَا وَهُمْ فِيهَا لَا يُبْخَسُونَ
man kāna yurīdu al-ḥayāta al-dunyā wa-zīnatahā nuwaffi ilayhim aʿmālahum fīhā wa-hum fīhā lā yubkhasūna
Translation: “Those who desire the worldly life and its adornment: We render their deeds to them in full within it, and they are not shortchanged there.”
Yubkhasūna is a passive imperfect verb. Unlike Shuʿayb’s verses, the focus is not someone diminishing another’s due, but people not suffering a shortfall.
Lā yubkhasūna stands significantly beside nuwaffi. Fulfilment and giving in full contrast with reducing or leaving deficient.
The context concerns those desiring worldly life and its adornment. The next verse, Hūd 11:16, addresses their deeds’ outcome in the Hereafter. Lā yubkhasūna must therefore be read with both horizons in view.
Here bakhs does not directly concern goods, measures or money. It concerns human deeds and what people receive in worldly life.
The Qur’an can thus extend the language of wrongful diminution beyond human financial dealings to recompensing deeds.
This must not become an absolute economic rule promising everyone pursuing worldly ends all their desired wealth or success in this life. The verse concerns the divine account of deeds and their outcomes; bakhs alone establishes neither the kind nor the amount of each result.
The word here denies a shortfall in what people are to receive.
D. Al-Jinn 72:13: confidence in justice and freedom from diminution
Al-Jinn 72:13
وَأَنَّا لَمَّا سَمِعْنَا الْهُدَىٰ آمَنَّا بِهِ ۖ فَمَنْ يُؤْمِنْ بِرَبِّهِ فَلَا يَخَافُ بَخْسًا وَلَا رَهَقًا
wa-annā lammā samiʿnā al-hudā āmannā bihi fa-man yuʾmin bi-rabbihi fa-lā yakhāfu bakhsan wa-lā rahaqan
Translation: “When we heard the guidance, we believed in it. Whoever believes in their Lord fears neither diminution of their due nor wrongful oppression.”
Bakhsan is an accusative noun, accompanied by another noun, rahaqan.
Earlier commentaries explain bakhs here as a reduction in deeds’ reward. Accounts of rahaq include imposed injustice, a wrongful increase in punishment or an added burden of sin.
The words are close, without being completely synonymous.
Bakhs foregrounds diminishing what someone should receive; rahaq can foreground oppression, imposition or a heavy and wrongful condition.
The verse thus portrays confidence against two concerns: reduction of one’s due, and an unjust burden being imposed.
This does not make every Qur’anic rahaq an addition to sins. That particular explanation follows from judgment’s context and the verse’s interpretation, and remains distinct from the word’s wider lexical range.
The passage is spoken by jinn who heard the guidance and believed in it. They speak of believing in their Lord and not fearing bakhs or rahaq.
Here too bakhs extends beyond commercial dealings. It concerns the confidence of whoever believes in their Lord; the speakers are jinn, so the assurance of justice is not restricted to humans. The believer’s due is not disregarded or given incompletely before The God.
This is an important witness against translating Qur’anic bakhs exclusively as short delivery in trade.
7. Translation proposals for Forqan
A concise, natural definition is: “Reducing or giving less; especially wrongfully diminishing a due, share or value.”
For the verb, consider “give less,” “diminish” or, as appropriate, “diminish someone’s due.”
The main proposal for tabkhasū al-nāsa ashyāʾahum is “diminish people’s things,” under the prohibition. It preserves both verb and object. Commentary can explain the shortfall in people’s property, goods and associated dues.
Yabkhas in Al-Baqarah 2:282 can be “diminish” or “give less.” With minhu shayʾan, a natural clause is “and let him not diminish any of it.”
“A paltry price” for thamanin bakhsin in Yūsuf 12:20 is more natural than a heavy construction such as “a price made undervalued.” “An unjust price” alone does not clearly convey its smallness. The wrongfulness of selling a human being warrants separate discussion.
Lā yubkhasūna in Hūd 11:15 means nothing of what people should receive is withheld. As a passive verb, it should not acquire an additional agent without reason.
Bakhsan in Al-Jinn 72:13 can be “diminution” or “a reduction in one’s due.” “Short delivery in trade” is inappropriate, since no transaction or measurement of goods is involved.
Translation must remain faithful to each use. One equivalent such as “undervaluing” or “deprivation” cannot replace the root without regard to construction across all seven verses.
8. Conclusion
B KH S occurs seven times in the Qur’an in two broad categories: verbs of reducing or giving less, and nominal or adjectival uses concerning deficiency and diminished value.
The earlier Arabic core is diminution, often associated in human relationships with injustice and deprivation. Bakhs can therefore involve short delivery, reducing a recorded debt, disregarding value or imposing wrongful loss.
The three repetitions of “do not diminish people’s things” in Shuʿayb’s address emphasize respect for others’ dues in economic and social relationships. The command accompanies just measure and weight without being restricted to them.
In Joseph’s story, thamanun bakhsun describes a paltry price. Its smallness must be distinguished from the wrongfulness of selling a human being; a low price does not exhaust the event’s ethical problem.
In Hūd 11:15 and Al-Jinn 72:13, bakhs extends beyond direct commercial dealings to assurance against diminution in what someone receives. It is therefore not restricted to short delivery or selling cheaply.
The central distinction is between a natural decrease and wrongfully diminishing a due or value. The latter is more prominent in rights-related bakhs, but each verse requires its own examination.
An appropriate final definition for Forqan:
Arabic B KH S concerns diminishing or making deficient; in ethical and rights contexts, it denotes wrongfully giving less of a due, share or value. The Qur’an uses it in trade, recording debt, Joseph’s sale and assurance against diminution in deeds’ recompense and people’s dues. Bakhs therefore means more than short delivery or selling cheaply: its precise sense follows from the verb’s object and each verse’s context.