The Qur’anic root B L ʿ

1. The semantic core in early Arabic

In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris identifies one semantic principle for B L ʿ:

«ازْدِرَادُ الشَّيْءِ»

izdirādu al-shayʾi

That is, swallowing something.

Arabic izdirād concerns swallowing food or another thing, particularly its passage through the throat into the interior.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah: izdirād and swallowing

In Kitāb al-ʿAyn, al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad gives examples concerning water and food.

Concerning water, he says:

“بَلِعَ الْمَاءَ” (baliʿa al-māʾa): he drank or swallowed the water.

For food, he records ابْتَلَعَ الطَّعَامَ (ibtalaʿa al-ṭaʿāma), swallowing food, particularly without chewing it.

These uses show that swallowing can concern both liquids and solids.

The explanation about swallowing food without chewing does not make a lack of chewing necessary in every instance of swallowing.

Someone who chews food and then swallows it has still swallowed. The lexical explanation highlights the possibility of swallowing directly without chewing; it does not make chewing incompatible with swallowing.

The semantic core therefore cannot be defined as “eating without chewing,” since this does not fully suit water and other things for which chewing is irrelevant.

The shared meaning is taking something inward by swallowing. How the thing is prepared, its substance, and its route are determined by the subject of the discourse.

Swallowing and eating

Eating and swallowing are closely related but are not identical.

Eating can encompass a sequence of actions: picking up food, placing it in the mouth, chewing, and swallowing.

Swallowing particularly highlights the stage when the substance passes inward.

For example, someone may put a mouthful of food in their mouth and chew it without yet swallowing it.

A liquid can also be swallowed without chewing.

Balʿ therefore concerns passage inward, rather than all the stages of eating or drinking.

This feature also makes nonhuman usage intelligible. When the earth is said to swallow water, the point is water entering the earth, rather than a physical human mouth or throat.

2. Linguistic forms and the root’s range

This Arabic family has several verbal and nominal forms, but only one occurs in the Qur’an.

Baliʿa and balaʿa

The Form I verb is recorded as both بَلِعَ (baliʿa) and بَلَعَ (balaʿa).

Al-Kisāʾī and al-Farrāʾ report both forms. The different vowel on the middle consonant does not create two independent meanings in this use.

Al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ: two vocalisations reported from al-Kisāʾī and al-Farrāʾ

بَلِعَ الشَّيْءَ (baliʿa al-shayʾa) or بَلَعَ الشَّيْءَ (balaʿa al-shayʾa) means swallowing something.

The verb can take a direct object: water or food, for example, is what is swallowed.

Ibtalaʿa

ابْتَلَعَ (ibtalaʿa) is Form VIII and, in its familiar use, expresses the same act of swallowing.

In some sentences it may emphasise carrying out or completing the act, but Form VIII alone does not establish that swallowing must always be stronger, quicker, or more complete than Form I.

Lexical sources repeatedly use balaʿa and ibtalaʿa to explain one another.

Their morphological difference is real, but a semantic distinction in a particular sentence requires contextual evidence.

Ablaʿa

أَبْلَعَ (ablaʿa) is Form IV. In its causative use, it means making someone else swallow something.

For example, أَبْلَعَهُ الشَّيْءَ (ablaʿahu al-shayʾa) means causing another person to swallow that thing.

This is different from Qur’anic ابْلَعِي (iblaʿī).

Iblaʿī in Hūd 11:44 is an imperative of Form I, whereas ablaʿa belongs to Form IV and has a different structure.

The distinction matters: similar initial letters must not lead to misidentifying the Qur’anic imperative as Form IV.

Taballaʿa

Lexical sources also record تَبَلَّعَ (taballaʿa) for swallowing water, food, or saliva.

This form does not occur in the Qur’an.

Bulʿah and balūʿ

In one familiar use, بُلْعَة (bulʿah) denotes the quantity of a drink swallowed at one time: roughly a gulp.

Sources such as Tāj al-ʿArūs record بَلُوع (balūʿ) for a beverage or swallowed medicine. قِدْرٌ بَلُوعٌ (qidrun balūʿun) also describes a wide cooking pot that takes in what is thrown into it. The description “glutton” is recorded with other forms, including بُلَع (bulaʿ) and بَلَّاع (ballāʿ), and should not be conflated with this vocalisation.

These forms show that the root family can concern the act, the quantity swallowed, and a vessel or place that takes something inward.

Their specialised meanings should not be imposed on the Qur’anic verb. Hūd 11:44 is not about the size of a gulp or the capacity of a vessel.

Tāj al-ʿArūs: balūʿ, bulʿah, and distinct glutton forms

Mablaʿ and bulʿūm

مَبْلَع (mablaʿ) denotes the place or route of swallowing, particularly in the throat.

بُلْعُوم (bulʿūm) likewise concerns the passage of food through the throat.

Lexicographers differ over the structure of bulʿūm. Some examine it in connection with B L ʿ; others treat it as having a four-consonant structure.

This reminds us that similarity in meaning and form is not always enough to determine a precise derivation.

The word can therefore clarify the semantic field of swallowing without serving, in the absence of morphological examination, as conclusive evidence for every derivational rule of the three-letter root.

Al-Miṣbāḥ and lexical sources: the structure of bulʿūm

3. Swallowing in objects and the environment

One important use of this family names a place into which water descends.

Early Arabic records بَالُوعَة (bālūʿah) and بَلُّوعَة (ballūʿah) for a well or opening into which water flows.

Al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad describes a well prepared for rainwater, with a narrow opening.

Lisān al-ʿArab also records this use for a water channel in the middle of a house.

The image is clear: water leaves an outer surface, enters a cavity or channel, and disappears from its previous position.

A well or channel lacks a human mouth and throat, but its taking in water resembles swallowing.

This matters for Hūd: the extension of swallowing from a living body to the earth and water channels was familiar in Arabic.

Swallowing here does not mean drinking to relieve thirst; it concerns a substance entering a place that receives it.

Swallowing and being covered

Ibn Fāris also connects another expression with this principle.

He discusses بَلَّعَ الشَّيْبُ فِي رَأْسِهِ (ballaʿa al-shaybu fī raʾsihi), an expression for grey hair appearing or spreading over the head.

In his explanation, when grey hair covers the whole head, it is as though it has swallowed or covered it.

The explanation depicts one thing encompassing another.

The recorded meaning of the expression should nevertheless be distinguished from Ibn Fāris’s analysis of its connection to swallowing.

Its hair-related meaning is the appearance or spread of greyness. Relating it to swallowing explains a possible connection between branches; it does not make turning grey the direct meaning of balʿ everywhere.

A poetic witness

A rajaz passage attributed to Ḥassān ibn Thābit reads:

لَمَّا رَأَتْنِي أُمُّ عَمْرٍو صَدَفَتْ
قَدْ بَلَّعَتْ بِي ذُرْأَةٌ فَأَلْحَفَتْ

lammā raʾatnī Ummu ʿAmrin ṣadafat / qad ballaʿat bī dhurʾatun fa-alḥafat

Translation: “When Umm ʿAmr saw me, she turned away; greyness had appeared in me and spread insistently.”

ذُرْأَة (dhurʾah) here means grey hair.

Ballaʿat concerns the appearance and spread of greyness, rather than swallowing food or water.

The witness appears in Lisān al-ʿArab and the collected poetry attributed to Ḥassān. However, the text of Al-Muḥkam attributes the same rajaz to Himyān, while that edition’s annotation and sources such as Lisān refer it to Ḥassān. Its attribution is therefore not uniform.

Ḥassān is a mukhaḍram poet whose life spanned the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods; the precise date of this particular rajaz remains unclear. It is useful evidence of early language, but should not be labelled definitely pre-Qur’anic without evidence. Given the differing reports, the poet’s identity should also remain qualified.

Al-Muḥkam: differing attribution of the rajaz to Himyān and Ḥassān

The water, food, drain, and grey-hair uses show both the family’s concrete semantic field and its figurative extensions; these witnesses alone do not establish the historical order in which every meaning arose.

The basic definition should nevertheless not become so broad that every act of covering, hiding, or spreading is called balʿ without evidence.

4. The sole Qur’anic occurrence: Hūd 11:44

Verse text:

وَقِيلَ يَا أَرْضُ ابْلَعِي مَاءَكِ وَيَا سَمَاءُ أَقْلِعِي وَغِيضَ الْمَاءُ وَقُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ وَاسْتَوَتْ عَلَى الْجُودِيِّ ۖ وَقِيلَ بُعْدًا لِلْقَوْمِ الظَّالِمِينَ

wa-qīla yā arḍu iblaʿī māʾaki wa-yā samāʾu aqliʿī wa-ghīḍa al-māʾu wa-quḍiya al-amru wa-istawat ʿalā al-Jūdiyyi wa-qīla buʿdan li-al-qawmi al-ẓālimīna

Translation:

“And it was said: O earth, swallow your water; and O heaven, cease. And the water receded, and the matter was concluded, and it came to rest upon Al-Jūdī. And it was said: Away with the wrongdoing people.”

Hūd 11:44

This verse concludes the flood scene in Noah’s story.

In Hūd 11:42, the vessel moves among waves like mountains, and Noah calls his son to accompany him.

In Hūd 11:43, Noah’s son says he will seek shelter on a mountain to protect him from the water. Noah replies that on that day there is no protection against The God’s command except for one shown mercy. A wave then separates them, and the son becomes one of the drowned.

Hūd 11:44 follows this scene with the flood’s conclusion.

First the earth is commanded to swallow its water, then heaven to cease. The water recedes, the matter is concluded, and the vessel comes to rest upon Al-Jūdī.

The sequence marks a transition from overwhelming water to a state in which the vessel can settle and that stage of the event has ended.

The meaning of iblaʿī

ابْلَعِي (iblaʿī) is an imperative from B L ʿ.

The addressee is the earth, so the verb is second-person feminine singular.

مَاءَكِ (māʾaki) is its object, denoting water attributed to the earth.

Semantically, the sentence commands the earth to take the water inward.

This accords with the basic meaning of swallowing, while differing from human swallowing in its subject.

In human swallowing, food or water passes through the mouth and throat into the body.

In Hūd, water is attributed to the earth, and the earth itself is commanded to swallow it.

The extension of the living-body image to the earth is clear; it does not establish a human mouth, throat, or digestive system for the earth.

Conversely, the expression should not become wholly abstract, as though no event involving water and earth were in view.

Earth and water are actual subjects of the scene. The language of swallowing presents water entering the earth through a familiar, compact image.

Does iblaʿī mean “drink”?

Al-Ṭabarī explains the verb with تَشَرَّبِي (tasharrabī).

This gloss clarifies taking in and absorbing water in Arabic.

Al-Ṭabarī: taking in water, ceasing rain, and receding water

The basic meanings of SH R B and B L ʿ should nevertheless be distinguished.

SH R B can express drinking and receiving liquid, whereas B L ʿ emphasises taking it inward by swallowing.

When the earth is addressed, “drink the water” is intelligible as a literary image; the Persian “swallow your water” conveys the intended meaning more clearly.

This rendering also reduces the possibility of imagining the earth drinking like a living being to relieve thirst.

Māʾaki: water attributed to the earth

The attached pronoun -ki in māʾaki refers to the earth.

This relationship matters linguistically: the verb has an object, and the command concerns particular water.

The pronoun alone does not establish that only groundwater, spring water, or water already present in the earth before the flood is intended.

In Arabic, associating something with a place can express its relationship to that location without indicating legal ownership or exclusive origin.

One might speak of a valley’s water, for example, even when some of it has come from rainfall.

Here māʾaki concerns the water associated with the earth within the flood scene.

It identifies water as the command’s object, without separately explaining the exact route, quantity, or origin of every portion.

The pronoun itself therefore does not show that the earth swallowed only its own spring water and none of the rainfall entered it.

Nor does the command imply that all water on earth, including seas and water needed for continued life, was destroyed or swallowed.

The subject is the floodwater within that scene.

5. Swallowing, ceasing, and the receding of water

The three opening expressions together depict the flood’s conclusion:

«ابْلَعِي مَاءَكِ»

iblaʿī māʾaki

«أَقْلِعِي»

aqliʿī

«غِيضَ الْمَاءُ»

ghīḍa al-māʾu

They concern one event but have different lexical meanings.

Swallowing: taking the water inward

Iblaʿī emphasises the water’s being taken into the earth.

The earth is more than a surface over which water has flowed: it is now itself commanded to swallow that water.

Rendering the verb as “let the water decrease” removes its particular image of taking inward.

Heaven ceasing

أَقْلِعِي (aqliʿī) belongs to Q L ʿ.

Study of Q L AYN (Not yet published)

Here it concerns heaven ceasing to rain.

The earth is commanded to swallow water, and heaven to end the rainfall.

These are related but different aspects: one concerns water already in the flood scene; the other concerns continued water coming from heaven.

“Cease” retains the verb’s direct meaning; the explanation can clarify that the cessation concerns rainfall.

The water receding

وَغِيضَ الْمَاءُ (wa-ghīḍa al-māʾu) belongs to the independent root GH Y Ḍ.

This family concerns diminishing and receding.

Ghīḍa is a passive past verb here, and al-māʾu its grammatical passive subject.

The difference from iblaʿī is clear.

Swallowing depicts the act of taking water inward.

Receding describes the water’s reduction and the ending of its overwhelming presence.

Water being swallowed may be one way for it to recede, but the words do not have identical meanings.

The distinction also prevents deducing the water’s exact route or distribution after the flood from ghīḍa al-māʾu alone.

The verse reports receding water; it does not supply a complete map of its surface or underground routes.

The matter’s conclusion and the vessel coming to rest

The statement about receding water is followed by وَقُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ (wa-quḍiya al-amru).

This describes the matter in question reaching completion. In the narrative, the flood stage and the fate of the warned group have been concluded.

Next comes وَاسْتَوَتْ عَلَى الْجُودِيِّ (wa-istawat ʿalā al-Jūdiyyi).

The preceding verses identify the referent as the vessel. Having moved among great waves, it now comes to rest upon Al-Jūdī.

The swallowing of water, the end of rainfall, the receding water, and the vessel’s resting are thus connected parts of the scene.

These verbs should not all become simply “the flood ended.” That summarises the overall result but removes the distinctions between the Qur’an’s images and verbs.

6. The flood’s beginning in Al-Qamar

Al-Qamar also describes Noah’s flood.

Al-Qamar 54:11 speaks of heaven’s gates opening with pouring water.

Al-Qamar 54:12 describes the earth bursting into springs and the waters meeting according to a decreed matter.

The two verses depict the flood’s onset and overwhelming spread from another angle.

Water descends from heaven, and springs also gush from the earth.

In Hūd 11:44, as the flood ends, the earth is commanded to swallow water and heaven to cease.

Reading these passages together establishes a clear relationship.

At the beginning, increasing and spreading water is prominent.

At the end, the cessation of rainfall, the swallowing of water, and its receding are described.

The connection should nevertheless not become a definite theory about the quantity arriving from heaven or issuing from the earth and subsequently returning to the same place.

The Qur’an describes the event through clear, vivid expressions, without specifying water volume, the exact duration of recession, or every underground route.

Nor does placing commands to earth and heaven together establish that both acted at precisely the same moment or through a single physical mechanism.

What is clear is the end of a situation in which water overwhelmed the scene and the vessel moved among waves.

Commanding the earth: the language of creation and divine power

Hūd 11:44 addresses earth and heaven directly.

This can be understood as an expression of effective divine command over creation.

The verse itself does not give a physical or psychological account of how earth and heaven receive that command.

The imperative form alone therefore does not establish human ears, speech, or decision-making for the earth.

Conversely, the command should not be reduced to an ineffective, merely decorative expression.

The verse describes a real event brought to its conclusion through divine will and command. Addressing earth and heaven expresses that sovereignty clearly and powerfully.

Elsewhere the Qur’an attributes behaviour or response to created phenomena, including Fuṣṣilat 41:11, where heaven and earth come at The God’s command.

The connection shows that addressing creation is not confined to the flood verse.

The lexical meaning of balʿ nevertheless remains taking something inward by swallowing.

The type of agent and the manner of the command’s fulfilment are separate from the root’s definition.

7. Differences from neighbouring roots

B L ʿ, balʿ, and SH R B, shurb

Study of SH R B

SH R B concerns drinking.

B L ʿ emphasises swallowing something inward.

With water, they can describe closely related actions, as when al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad uses drinking to explain swallowing water.

Drinking particularly concerns receiving liquid as a drink, whereas swallowing can concern solid food, saliva, or water entering the earth.

“Drink the water” and “swallow the water” can therefore be close in some contexts, but “swallow” preserves the more appropriate image in Hūd 11:44.

B L ʿ, balʿ, and J R ʿ, jarʿ

Study of J R AYN (Not yet published)

J R ʿ concerns swallowing liquid and taking a gulp.

Some lexical sources use jarʿ to explain balʿ.

A gulp particularly draws attention to a portion or occasion of taking in liquid.

Swallowing, by contrast, can describe taking something inward without specifying a quantity.

Iblaʿī māʾaki should therefore not become “drink your water gulp by gulp.”

The verse does not specify the quantity swallowed at a time or the number of times.

B L ʿ, balʿ, and L Q M, laqm

Study of L Q M (Not yet published)

L Q M concerns a mouthful and taking food into the mouth.

Al-Ṣāffāt 37:142 describes the fish taking in Jonah through الْتَقَمَ (iltaqama).

The image is close to swallowing, but the distinction matters.

Taking a mouthful can particularly emphasise catching something with the mouth and bringing it inside.

Swallowing highlights its passage further inward.

The roots should therefore not be treated as complete synonyms merely because both concern mouths and food.

B L ʿ, balʿ, and S R Ṭ, sarṭ

Arabic sarṭ concerns swallowing something, particularly food.

Ibn al-Aʿrābī uses it to explain swallowing.

In many uses, sarṭ and balʿ are close.

This does not establish that every nuance of speed or lack of chewing found with one must occur with the other.

The Qur’anic construction has water as the object and earth as the subject; translation should be based on that actual sentence.

B L ʿ, balʿ, and GH Y Ḍ, ghayḍ

Study of GH Y DAD (Not yet published)

These roots concern the same scene in Hūd 11:44 but highlight different aspects.

B L ʿ concerns water being taken into the earth.

GH Y Ḍ concerns water diminishing and receding.

Recession can result from water being taken inward, but reduction alone does not specify its route or manner.

Rendering both with a single verb such as “the water disappeared” obscures the verse’s lexical distinctions.

B L ʿ, balʿ, and N SH F, nashf

N SH F concerns absorbing moisture and drying.

A cloth taking in water, for example, illustrates the absorption of moisture.

Balʿ can likewise concern water being taken inward by the earth.

Passage inward is prominent in swallowing, whereas nashf can particularly draw attention to absorption and the disappearance of surface moisture.

This is a tendency, rather than an absolute boundary governing every use of both roots.

Hūd 11:44 uses iblaʿī. The image of swallowing water should therefore remain, rather than being unnecessarily replaced with simply “drying the earth.”

B L ʿ, balʿ, and B L GH, bulūgh

Study of B L GH

The roots share their first two consonants but differ in the third.

B L GH concerns reaching something, a limit, or a destination.

B L ʿ concerns swallowing something inward.

They may have a distant association in certain situations involving movement, but two shared consonants do not prove common derivation or identical meaning.

Balʿ should therefore not become “the water reaching its destination,” nor should features of bulūgh be imported into its definition.

8. Translation proposals for Forqan

For baliʿa and balaʿa, the basic equivalents are “swallowed” or “took inward.”

For ibtalaʿa, “swallowed” is suitable. If swallowing without chewing matters in a particular context, that feature can be explained separately.

For causative ablaʿa, “made someone swallow” or “caused someone to swallow something” is appropriate.

Bulʿah in its drink-related use can be rendered “a gulp.”

Depending on context, mablaʿ can mean the place of swallowing or the passage for swallowing food.

Bālūʿah and ballūʿah may be rendered “drain,” “soakaway,” or “a channel into which water descends,” according to the structure concerned.

These derivatives do not occur in the Qur’an; their specialised meanings should not replace the verse’s main verb.

Translating the Qur’anic use

The key expression in Hūd 11:44 is:

«يَا أَرْضُ ابْلَعِي مَاءَكِ»

yā arḍu iblaʿī māʾaki

Proposed rendering:

“O earth, swallow your water.”

This retains several important features.

First, the addressee remains the earth.

Second, the verb is imperative.

Third, its object is water, and the attached pronoun retains the water’s relationship to the earth.

Fourth, taking inward remains clear without adding bodily or geological details.

“O earth, absorb your water” can express part of the result, but “swallow” is closer to the original image.

“O earth, become dry” is unsuitable because it changes the command from swallowing water to changing the earth’s own condition.

“O earth, destroy the water” also exceeds the lexical meaning. Swallowing does not necessarily destroy matter.

In the full verse, iblaʿī, aqliʿī, and ghīḍa should receive separate equivalents, preserving swallowing, ceasing, and receding.

9. Conclusion

Arabic B L ʿ concerns swallowing something inward. This is clear in eating and drinking and, in extended uses, in a channel or land taking water into itself.

Early dictionaries record forms including balaʿa, ibtalaʿa, ablaʿa, bulʿah, mablaʿ, and bālūʿah.

Some subsidiary expressions also concern something spreading over another, as with grey hair. This particular use should not replace the core meaning of swallowing.

The Qur’an uses only iblaʿī, in Hūd 11:44.

At the conclusion of Noah’s flood, the earth is commanded to swallow its water. In the same verse, heaven is commanded to cease, the water recedes, and the vessel comes to rest upon Al-Jūdī.

Together these show the Qur’an expressing different aspects of the flood’s conclusion through independent verbs.

Balʿ expresses swallowing water; iqlāʿ expresses ceasing; ghayḍ expresses diminishing and receding.

Addressing the earth does not assign it a human digestive system. Early Arabic uses extend swallowing from a living body to channels and the environment.

The image should nevertheless not be made so abstract that the actual relationship between earth and water disappears.

Final root definition: B L ʿ denotes taking something inward by swallowing, so that it passes from an exposed or previous position into an interior space. The meaning applies concretely to water and food and, in extended usage, to the earth and water channels.

The root’s distinguishing feature is taking inward by swallowing, rather than merely drinking, eating, drying, diminishing, or destroying.

Thus “O earth, swallow your water” in Hūd 11:44 preserves the word’s direct meaning and distinctive image. The flood’s conclusion and consequences are understood through the full verse and the other passages concerning Noah’s story.