The Qur’anic Root B R D (Bard, Barad, and Bārid)
Coolness and hail; from bodily relief and refreshing water to Abraham’s fire and deprivation of coolness in descriptions of punishment
Qur’anic and lexical forms
بَرْد
(bard)
Coldness and coolness; occurs twice in the Qur’an as bardan
بَرَد
(barad)
Hail; one Qur’anic occurrence in Al-Nūr 24:43
بَارِد
(bārid)
Cold or cool; Qur’anic in Ṣād 38:42 and Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44
بَرُدَ / بَرَّدَ
(baruda / barrada)
To become cold / to make cold; non-Qur’anic lexical verbs
أَبْتَرِدُ
(abtaridu)
Form VIII imperfect in the poetic witness; not Qur’anic
أَبْرَدَيْهِ
(abradayhi)
Dual form in the verse attributed to al-Shammākh; not Qur’anic
بُرْد
(burd)
A garment; non-Qur’anic lexical use
مِبْرَد
(mibrad)
A file; non-Qur’anic lexical use
بَرِيد
(barīd)
Messenger and relay travel; non-Qur’anic lexical use
1. Introducing the root and its Qur’anic forms
In Arabic, B R D concerns coldness and coolness. The family describes the temperature of air and water; broader uses can concern becoming calm, an intensity subsiding, and relief. With a different vowel pattern, بَرَد (barad) denotes hail: pellets of ice falling from clouds.
The root occurs five times in the Qur’an, in five verses of five surahs. Its three morphological categories are:
- بَرْدًا (bardan) in Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69 and Al-Nabaʾ 78:24: a noun meaning coolness or coldness.
- بَرَدٍ (baradin) in Al-Nūr 24:43: a noun meaning hail.
- بَارِدٌ (bāridun) in Ṣād 38:42 and بَارِدٍ (bāridin) in Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44: an active participle used descriptively to mean cool or cold.
This count follows the Qur’anic morphological index. Every Qur’anic occurrence is a noun or descriptive form; no verb from this root occurs in the Qur’anic text.
The five occurrences matter because their contexts differ. In Al-Anbiyāʾ, fire becomes cool and harmless for Abraham; Al-Nūr describes hail being sent down; Ṣād presents cool water for washing and drinking; Al-Wāqiʿah describes shade that is not cool; and Al-Nabaʾ concerns the coolness or relief denied to those undergoing punishment.
These differences show that coldness and coolness are not inherently either punishment or blessing in the Qur’an. Their value and effects depend on circumstances and context.
2. Semantic centers in early Arabic
Coldness contrasted with heat
The direct, established meaning of بَرْد (bard) is coldness as opposed to heat. Lisān al-ʿArab records:
«الْبَرْدُ ضِدُّ الْحَرِّ»
al-bardu ḍiddu al-ḥarri
That is: “Coldness is the opposite of heat.”
In this field, بَرُدَ (baruda) means to become cold, while بَرَّدَ (barrada) means to make something cold. بارِد (bārid) describes something cold or cool. Sources record ماء بارد (māʾ bārid), ماء برود (māʾ barūd), and ماء براد (māʾ burād) for cool water.
English “cold” and “cool” differ relatively. “Cold” can cover lowered temperature through to discomforting cold, while “cool” often suggests a mild or welcome degree of coldness.
The Arabic root itself sets no fixed boundary between beneficial and harmful cold. That distinction comes from the physical situation and accompanying words.
Cool water in intense heat may bring relief, while very cold air in unsuitable conditions may cause distress. Both concern a low temperature, but their effects differ.
Four branches in Maqāyīs al-lughah
Ibn Fāris identifies four bases for B R D:
«أَحَدُهَا خِلَافُ الْحَرِّ، وَالْآخَرُ السُّكُونُ وَالثُّبُوتُ، وَالثَّالِثُ الْمَلْبُوسُ، وَالرَّابِعُ الِاضْطِرَابُ وَالْحَرَكَةُ»
aḥaduhā khilāfu al-ḥarri wa-al-ākharu al-sukūnu wa-al-thubūtu wa-al-thālithu al-malbūsu wa-al-rābiʿu al-iḍṭirābu wa-al-ḥarakatu
Translation: “One is the opposite of heat; another is stillness and stability; the third is clothing; and the fourth is agitation and movement.”
This division shows that lexicographers did not confine every word listed under this entry to a single simple meaning.
The first branch concerns coldness and coolness. The second appears in expressions of an established right, becoming still, or sleeping. The third concerns بُرْد (burd), a garment, particularly striped cloth or a covering. The fourth concerns بَرِيد (barīd) and the coming and going of messengers.
Four branches do not prove four entirely independent historical origins, just as there is no warrant for deriving them all from water becoming cold.
Lexical research should first establish the actual uses and then assess their historical relationships.
Bard and barad: two distinct forms
In Arabic, a single vowel can distinguish two closely related nouns.
بَرْد (bard), with no vowel after rāʾ, means coldness or coolness.
بَرَد (barad), with a short a after rāʾ, denotes hail: frozen pellets falling from clouds.
Lexical sources also describe بَرَد as حَبُّ الْغَمَامِ (ḥabbu al-ghamām), “the grains of clouds.” Reporting al-Layth’s explanation, Lisān al-ʿArab describes it as frozen rain.
The semantic relationship is clear: hail is a particular form of cold, frozen water.
Hail is not coldness in general. For example, describing water as cool does not imply, merely through a shared root, that it necessarily contains hail.
The distinction is clear in Qur’anic use. Al-Nūr 24:43 concerns hail, whereas بَرْدًا in Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69 and Al-Nabaʾ 78:24 concerns coldness or coolness.
Becoming cold and becoming calm
Lisān al-ʿArab records بَرَدَتْ عَيْنُهُ (baradat ʿaynuhu) for pain in the eye subsiding, and بَرَدَ الْأَمْرُ (barada al-amru) for a matter’s intensity abating.
عَيْشٌ بَارِدٌ (ʿayshun bāridun) also describes a pleasant, comfortable life. Here coolness extends from a physical property to an expression of ease.
For people facing intense heat, this extension is understandable through everyday experience. Coolness can lessen heat and allow someone to settle and rest.
That experience does not establish that early Arabs necessarily understood every occurrence of بَرْد as psychological calm.
Actual coldness, pain subsiding, and a comfortable life are semantically connected, but they are not synonymous in every sentence.
Sleep and the meaning of bard
Dictionaries also record بَرْد for sleep.
Lisān al-ʿArab explains the connection with coolness through sleep’s settling the body or soothing distress and suffering.
This sense matters in the interpretation of Al-Nabaʾ 78:24. Some lexicographers and commentators understand بَرْدًا there as sleep.
Two questions must remain separate: can برد mean sleep in Arabic, and is that its strongest reading in Al-Nabaʾ 78:24?
The answer to the first is yes: early sources record that use. The second requires an independent assessment of the verse’s context and linguistic evidence.
3. Poetry and everyday Arabic usage
Coolness, relief from heat, and calm
A poem attributed to ʿUrwah ibn Udhaynah, an Umayyad-period poet, reads:
إِذَا وَجَدْتُ أُوَارَ الْحُبِّ فِي كَبِدِي
idhā wajadtu uwāra al-ḥubbi fī kabidī
أَقْبَلْتُ نَحْوَ سِقَاءِ الْقَوْمِ أَبْتَرِدُ
aqbaltu naḥwa siqāʾi al-qawmi abtaridu
Translation: “Whenever I feel love’s burning heat within me, I turn toward the people’s waterskin to cool myself.”
The verse appears in Lisān al-ʿArab and early literary sources. Attribution varies: some collections assign it to ʿUrwah ibn Udhaynah, while Asās al-balāghah assigns it to “the Meccan ascetic.” The second hemistich also has variants such as عَمَدْتُ (ʿamadtu) in place of أَقْبَلْتُ (aqbaltu).
The poet evokes two kinds of heat: love’s inward burning, described figuratively, and a bodily heat that water can dispel.
أَبْتَرِدُ (abtaridu) here concerns cooling oneself with water. برد itself does not mean love or a cure for sorrow.
The verse clearly illustrates how a root’s physical meaning can accompany an emotional experience without changing the definition of the root itself.
ʿUrwah ibn Udhaynah lived after the Qur’an’s revelation, and this verse’s attribution is also disputed. It should not be presented as pre-Islamic or as certain evidence of pre-revelation meaning; its value is as a recorded use in classical Arabic of the early Islamic period.
Abradayhi: two cool times or places
A verse attributed to al-Shammākh ibn Ḍirār reads:
إِذَا الْأَرْطَى تَوَسَّدَ أَبْرَدَيْهِ
idhā al-arṭā tawassada abradayhi
خُدُودُ جَوَازِئٍ بِالرَّمْلِ عِينِ
khudūdu jawāziʾin bi-al-ramli ʿīni
Sense translation: “When the wide-eyed wild cows, on the sandy ground, rest their cheeks upon the arṭā tree in its cool shades.” جوازئ (jawāziʾ) describes animals sustained by fresh herbage without needing to drink water; in explanations of this verse, عين (ʿīn), “wide-eyed,” is taken as an indication of wild cattle.
أَبْرَدَيْهِ (abradayhi) is dual. The coolness of shade and returning shade, ظِلّ (ẓill) and فَيْء (fayʾ), suits the scene of resting animals. Dictionaries also use الأبردان (al-abradān) for morning and evening.
A single temporal or spatial meaning therefore cannot be assigned to every occurrence of this form without examining its context.
The witness shows that Arabic could associate coolness with milder times of day as well as shaded places.
Al-Shammākh lived across the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. The date of this particular verse is uncertain, so it should not be presented unreservedly as securely pre-Qur’anic evidence.
Sa-tabrudu akbādan: inward burning subsides
A well-known verse attributed to Mālik ibn al-Rayb in Lisān al-ʿArab reads:
وَعَطِّلْ قَلُوصِي فِي الرِّكَابِ فَإِنَّهَا
wa-ʿaṭṭil qalūṣī fī al-rikābi fa-innahā
سَتَبْرُدُ أَكْبَادًا وَتُبْكِي بَوَاكِيَا
sa-tabrudu akbādan wa-tubkī bawākiyā
Translation: “Leave my young she-camel unused among the riding camels; she will cool some hearts and make mourners weep.”
On this reading, the return of the riderless she-camel and news of the poet’s death will soothe his enemies’ burning hostility while bringing grief to those who love him.
سَتَبْرُدُ (sa-tabrudu) is not confined here to the literal cooling of a person’s liver. It is a literary expression for inward burning subsiding.
Al-Aghānī also transmits a close version within a poem by Jaʿfar ibn ʿUlbah. Transmissions of Mālik ibn al-Rayb’s elegy also record سَتَفْلِقُ (sa-tafliqu) in place of سَتَبْرُدُ. Both textual and attributional differences must remain visible when assessing this witness.
The verse is useful as a lexical record, but neither its wording nor its attribution should be treated as certain without qualification. Mālik ibn al-Rayb and Jaʿfar ibn ʿUlbah both belong to the Islamic period; this transmission is not secure pre-Qur’anic evidence either.
Sleep as respite
Discussing Al-Nabaʾ 78:24, al-Ṭabarī quotes a verse attributed to a Kindī poet in which الْبَرْدُ denotes sleep and its overcoming the speaker:
بَرَدَتْ مَرَاشِفُهَا عَلَيَّ فَصَدَّنِي
baradat marāshifuhā ʿalayya fa-ṣaddanī
عَنْهَا وَعَنْ قُبُلَاتِهَا الْبَرْدُ
ʿanhā wa-ʿan qubulātihā al-bardu
Sense translation: “Her lips were cool upon me, but sleep kept me from her and from her kisses.”
Al-Ṭabarī cites the witness to demonstrate that the sleep sense is possible, yet prefers the more usual meaning of coolness in his interpretation of the verse.
The precise poet and date are not established in the transmission examined here. This witness should not be classified as pre-Islamic without further evidence.
Other recorded branches
Dictionaries record بُرْد (burd) for a familiar garment, مِبْرَد (mibrad) for a tool used to file metal, and بَرِيد (barīd) for a messenger or system of relay travel.
Ibn Fāris places the garment in the third branch and barīd in the fourth. He considers the file’s connection with movement a possibility, since the hand moves back and forth when using it. The historical relationship of barīd to other forms also requires caution: identical consonants do not establish a shared historical origin.
These meanings help reveal the family’s range, but they should not be imported without evidence into Qur’anic verses about coldness and hail.
4. Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69: fire becomes cool and harmless for Abraham
Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69
قُلْنَا يَا نَارُ كُونِي بَرْدًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ
qulnā yā nāru kūnī bardan wa-salāman ʿalā Ibrāhīma
Translation: “We said: O fire, be cool and harmless for Abraham.”
Bardan in this verse
بَرْدًا is an accusative noun functioning as the predicate of كُونِي (kūnī), “be.” سَلَامًا (salāman) is coordinated with it and shares the same grammatical position.
The Qur’an places two descriptions together: coldness and safety.
بَرْد belongs to B R D, and سلام to S L M. They are compatible, closely connected words, but they are not synonymous.
Coldness concerns a thermal property; safety concerns being unharmed and remaining secure.
Translating only “the fire became cold” loses the contribution of سلاما. Conversely, turning بردا into merely “harmless” weakens the striking image of a change in the fire’s heat.
Commentators have also noted this distinction. Some explain that coldness alone was not enough: the fire’s being harmless also mattered, because extreme cold can itself cause injury.
That explanation accords with the lexical distinction, but it must not become a definite physical account of the fire’s temperature.
The verse specifies no temperature, cooling mechanism, or chemical and physical properties of the fire.
Did the fire cease to be fire?
In Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:68, Abraham’s opponents speak of burning him. Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69 then gives the divine command to the fire, and Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:70 recalls the defeat of the opponents’ plan.
The setting is clear: people wanted the fire to harm Abraham, but their intended outcome did not occur.
The verse does not state that every fire in the world became cold at that moment or that natural laws changed permanently.
عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ (ʿalā Ibrāhīma), “for Abraham,” is decisive: the fire’s coolness and harmlessness are related specifically to him.
The direct meaning therefore concerns a particular event and a particular person.
The verse does not explain whether the fire’s material structure changed, its heat ceased to affect Abraham’s body, or the event took place in some other way.
Those questions go beyond root semantics. The text makes clear the divine command that the fire become cool and harmless for Abraham.
Does bard here mean psychological ease?
Arabic can use coolness for calm and the easing of distress, but the command here addresses the fire itself.
The direct, physical sense of coldness therefore has priority over figurative ease.
Rendering بردا وسلاما merely as “be a source of calm and comfort” risks losing the scene of the fire and the part played by coolness.
Nor does this verse establish that برد always means security or deliverance in Qur’anic language. Safety is expressed here by the separate word سلام.
5. Al-Nūr 24:43: barad as hail
Al-Nūr 24:43
أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُزْجِي سَحَابًا ثُمَّ يُؤَلِّفُ بَيْنَهُ ثُمَّ يَجْعَلُهُ رُكَامًا فَتَرَى الْوَدْقَ يَخْرُجُ مِنْ خِلَالِهِ وَيُنَزِّلُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مِنْ جِبَالٍ فِيهَا مِنْ بَرَدٍ فَيُصِيبُ بِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَيَصْرِفُهُ عَنْ مَنْ يَشَاءُ ۖ يَكَادُ سَنَا بَرْقِهِ يَذْهَبُ بِالْأَبْصَارِ
a-lam tara anna llāha yuzjī saḥāban thumma yuʾallifu baynahu thumma yajʿaluhu rukāman fa-tarā al-wadqa yakhruju min khilālihi wa-yunazzilu mina al-samāʾi min jibālin fīhā min baradin fa-yuṣību bihi man yashāʾu wa-yaṣrifuhu ʿan man yashāʾu yakādu sanā barqihi yadhhabu bi-al-abṣāri
Translation: “Do you not see that The God drives clouds along, then joins them together, then makes them a mass? You see rain emerging through them; and He sends down hail from the sky, from mountains within it, striking with it whomever He wills and turning it away from whomever He wills. The gleam of its lightning almost takes away sight.”
The meaning of baradin
بَرَدٍ here names hail.
It belongs to the same family as بَرْدًا in Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69, but its form and referent differ.
Hail is a particular phenomenon: frozen pellets formed under certain atmospheric conditions and falling from clouds.
مِنْ بَرَدٍ (min baradin) should therefore not be translated as “of coolness” or “of coldness.” The context identifies a substance falling from the sky.
The same verse uses الْوَدْقَ (al-wadqa) for rain. It mentions rain first and hail afterward.
The two phenomena are related but distinct: rain is liquid, whereas hail falls as pellets of ice.
Min jibālin fīhā min baradin: mountains of hail or mountain-like clouds?
The phrase is a difficult part of the verse, both grammatically and in its imagery.
The phrase describing hail’s descent contains three instances of مِنْ (min): مِنَ السَّمَاءِ (mina al-samāʾi), مِنْ جِبَالٍ (min jibālin), and مِنْ بَرَدٍ (min baradin).
On one grammatical analysis, the first min marks the starting point of descent, the second is partitive, and the third identifies the material or kind. This analysis accompanies the reading of mountains of hail. On the mountain-like cloud reading, the second min has also been taken to mark a starting point, with the second phrase replacing or specifying the first.
The meaning of جبال (jibāl), “mountains,” is disputed.
On one reading, the phrase concerns mountains of hail in the sky.
On another, it may concern large, accumulated clouds likened to mountains because of their bulk and shape.
The sources do not report these views identically. Al-Ṭabarī presents “mountains of hail in the sky” and “hail in the quantity or likeness of mountains”; al-Qurṭubī also reports these explanations. Ibn Kathīr explicitly discusses taking “mountains” as clouds.
Several points about the verse’s construction must be preserved.
First, بَرَد means hail. Disagreement over the nature of the mountains does not change that word’s meaning.
Second, the preceding wording describes clouds being brought together and piled up, which gives contextual support to the mountain-like cloud reading.
Third, the text explicitly says جبال. It should not be silently omitted in a way that makes readers think the verse mentions only ordinary clouds.
Conversely, the presence of جبال alone does not establish literal mountains of rock or ice in the sky with structures identical to terrestrial mountains.
The Qur’an’s verbal image should be preserved, while determining its physical nature remains separate from lexical study.
Does the verse explain the scientific mechanism of hail formation?
Modern knowledge describes hail forming within storm clouds under conditions allowing water to freeze.
That knowledge helps explain a natural phenomenon, but the verse should not be made to yield exact cloud heights, atmospheric temperatures, hailstone sizes, or the number of freezing stages.
The Qur’an describes clouds moving, gathering, and piling up, followed by rainfall and hail descending.
This description relates to observable weather phenomena; it is not a complete meteorological account.
Fa-yuṣību bihi man yashāʾu: hail reaching people
After describing hail’s descent, the verse says that The God causes it to reach whomever He wills and turns it away from whomever He wills.
يُصِيبُ (yuṣību) belongs to Ṣ W B and means reaching or striking in this context.
برد alone does not establish that hail always signifies divine anger or punishment.
Hail can have different effects. It may contribute water or lessen heat, and it may damage crops, animals, or property.
Al-Ṭabarī emphasizes hail’s potential to cause damage in explaining this verse. Ibn Kathīr considers both beneficial precipitation and harmful hail.
The verse itself does not place a separate word meaning punishment beside برد.
The name of the natural phenomenon should therefore remain distinct from the assessment of its effects.
6. Ṣād 38:42: cool water for washing and drinking
Ṣād 38:42
ارْكُضْ بِرِجْلِكَ ۖ هَٰذَا مُغْتَسَلٌ بَارِدٌ وَشَرَابٌ
urkuḍ bi-rijlika hādhā mughtasalun bāridun wa-sharābun
Translation: “Strike with your foot; here is cool water for washing and drinking.”
The meaning of bāridun
بَارِدٌ is an active participle from B R D, used here to mean cool or cold.
It describes مُغْتَسَل (mughtasal), a word for a place of washing or water with which one washes.
وَشَرَابٌ (wa-sharābun) follows and adds drinking to the scene.
The verse thus presents something suitable for washing and drinking. In natural English, “water” is understood from these activities, although that noun does not occur separately in the Arabic phrase.
Al-Ṭabarī likewise explains mughtasal as washing water or the place where washing takes place.
The central point is that بارد describes temperature. The word itself does not mean treatment, healing, or recovery from disease.
The verse in Job’s story
Ṣād 38:41 describes Job complaining to his Lord of distress and suffering.
The command ارْكُضْ بِرِجْلِكَ (urkuḍ bi-rijlika), “strike with your foot,” and the introduction of cool water for washing and drinking follow.
The connection between the verses indicates that water plays a part in the relief of Job’s distress.
The verse identifies no specific disease, medical cause, or therapeutic mechanism of cold water.
This use cannot establish that cold water treats every disease or should replace warm water in every illness.
Lexically, the clear point is that the water described is cool and is presented for washing and drinking in this particular event.
Does bārid mean clean and healing?
Being cool and being healing are different properties.
Water may be cool yet unsuitable to drink. Warm water may also be useful for washing or treatment in other circumstances.
The adjective بارد alone establishes neither cleanliness nor therapeutic value nor the water’s safety.
The benefit of the water in Job’s story emerges from the whole event. B R D itself concerns coldness and coolness.
This distinction prevents one particular Qur’anic use from becoming a compulsory general definition of the word.
7. Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44: shade that is not cool
Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44
لَا بَارِدٍ وَلَا كَرِيمٍ
lā bāridin wa-lā karīmin
Translation: “Neither cool nor pleasant.”
This verse continues the description of the companions of the left in Al-Wāqiʿah 56:41, Al-Wāqiʿah 56:42, and Al-Wāqiʿah 56:43.
Al-Wāqiʿah 56:42 mentions سَمُومٍ وَحَمِيمٍ (samūmin wa-ḥamīmin), scorching wind and intensely hot water. Al-Wāqiʿah 56:43 then mentions ظِلٍّ مِنْ يَحْمُومٍ (ẓillin min yaḥmūmin), shade of smoke or deep blackness.
Verse 44 continues describing that shade: neither cool nor pleasant.
Bāridin in this context
بارد is genitive here, describing the shade mentioned in the preceding verse.
In ordinary human experience, shade reduces direct sunlight and may provide coolness and relief.
The shade described here does not do so.
By negating بارد, the Qur’an shows that this shade lacks the expected quality of bringing relief.
وَلَا كَرِيمٍ (wa-lā karīmin) follows. In this context, karīm concerns being agreeable or pleasant. Al-Qurṭubī likewise explains it through the shade’s unpleasantness and lack of good.
بارد and كريم differ lexically: the first describes temperature, while the second gives an evaluation.
Translating both simply as “uncomfortable” would erase the distinction between the words.
Does bārid here mean calm?
Coolness and calm can be connected in human experience, but the physical indications here are clear.
The preceding verses describe scorching wind, hot water, and dark shade. In its direct sense, لا بارد therefore expresses the absence of coolness.
This implies that the shade brings no relief, but that lack of relief is a contextual result; بارد does not lexically mean only being at ease.
Nor should the description be used to determine the physical details of the hereafter through terrestrial atmospheric conditions. The Qur’an gives a tangible, clear image without explaining the precise nature of that realm in this verse.
8. Al-Nabaʾ 78:24: does bardan mean coolness or sleep?
Al-Nabaʾ 78:24
لَا يَذُوقُونَ فِيهَا بَرْدًا وَلَا شَرَابًا
lā yadhūqūna fīhā bardan wa-lā sharāban
Translation: “There they taste neither coolness nor drink.”
The verse concerns people for whom the preceding context describes a place of punishment.
In Al-Nabaʾ 78:25, the denial of coolness and drink is followed by the exception إِلَّا حَمِيمًا وَغَسَّاقًا (illā ḥamīman wa-ghassāqan). Thus the passage does not deny everything physically describable as a drink. It describes deprivation of cooling relief and beneficial drink, in contrast with what follows.
The precise sense of بَرْدًا here has been disputed among lexicographers and commentators.
First reading: coolness that lessens the heat of punishment
On the first reading, برد retains the familiar meaning of coolness.
The verse says that in that place they find neither coolness to lessen the heat nor refreshing drink.
Al-Ṭabarī prefers this sense. He explains that interpretation should, where possible, give priority to a word’s usual, recognized meaning in Arabic.
The context also supports this reading.
The next verse mentions حميم (ḥamīm), intensely hot water. A contrast between coolness and hot drink is therefore understandable in this setting.
Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44 also describes shade that is not cool. It offers a useful Qur’anic parallel for coolness in imagery of relief and its deprivation.
“They taste no coolness” consequently has clear support from the root’s ordinary meaning and Qur’anic connections.
Second reading: sleep and respite
Early sources record another sense of برد: sleep.
Al-Kisāʾī, Abū ʿUbaydah, and some commentators present this meaning when explaining Al-Nabaʾ 78:24.
On this reading, those undergoing punishment have neither sleep to lessen their suffering nor drink to quench their thirst.
Al-Baghawī reports this sense alongside مَنَعَ الْبَرْدُ الْبَرْدَ (manaʿa al-bardu al-barda), “the cold prevented sleep.” The first bard denotes coldness and the second sleep.
The usage shows that the sleep sense is neither a modern invention nor unsupported.
Its existence in Arabic does not, however, establish that it is the strongest reading of this verse.
Al-Nabaʾ 78:24 concerns coolness and drink, followed by ḥamīm. This relationship strengthens the direct coolness reading.
Al-Ṭabarī likewise reports the sleep interpretation but regards it as weaker here than the usual coldness sense.
Third reading: comfort and respite from suffering
Another explanation in commentaries takes برد as ease or comfort.
Reports attributed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and ʿAṭāʾ explain the phrase as an absence of rest and relief.
This is connected with the experience of coolness as a source of comfort.
The word’s translation should nevertheless remain distinct from the image’s ultimate effect.
If برد means coolness, its absence in a burning place suggests deprivation of relief. That implication is understandable without replacing the word in translation with “every kind of comfort.”
“Relief” can therefore explain the effect of the absence of coolness, but as a direct translation it is broader than the word.
Weighing the three readings
The evidence allows three levels to be distinguished.
Coolness is a well-established general meaning in Arabic and directly suits the heat and drink of this context.
Sleep is an attested early Arabic use with a history in interpretation, but preferring it to coolness in this context would require stronger evidence.
Comfort can also be a natural extension or consequence of coolness, yet using it as the basic translation substitutes part of the semantic explanation for the word itself.
For Forqan, “coolness” is therefore the preferred translation, while the other two readings remain in the research discussion.
This choice neither denies the attested sleep sense nor abandons the word’s direct reading simply because a secondary possibility exists.
10. Translation proposals for Forqan
For direct uses of بَرْد, “coldness” and “coolness” are suitable.
“Coolness” is more natural where the context presents pleasant, beneficial cold; “coldness” can convey a broader, more neutral sense.
For بَرَد, with a short a after rāʾ, the clear equivalent is “hail.”
For بارد, choose “cold” or “cool” according to context.
Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69: “O fire, be cool and harmless for Abraham.” “Cool” conveys bard, while “harmless” conveys salām.
Al-Nūr 24:43: “hail” is appropriate for بَرَدٍ. Disagreement about the mountains belongs in the verse’s analysis, separately from the definition of hail itself.
Ṣād 38:42: “cool water for washing and drinking” naturally conveys the sentence’s sense. In word-by-word study, بارد itself means only cool.
Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44: “Neither cool nor pleasant.” The description refers back to the preceding verse’s shade.
Al-Nabaʾ 78:24: “There they taste neither coolness nor drink.” The sleep sense belongs in the lexical discussion and should not replace the primary translation without stronger evidence.
In every case, distinguish the brief general root meaning from the word’s meaning in the particular verse.
The family’s brief meaning is coldness and coolness; its particular use in Al-Nūr 24:43 is hail. Al-Nabaʾ 78:24 concerns coolness in a burning place, rather than every kind of coldness considered abstractly.
11. Conclusion
B R D occurs five times in the Qur’an, in five verses. Its forms are بَرْد, بَرَد, and بارد.
In early Arabic, the family’s main familiar meaning is coldness as opposed to heat. بَرَد specifically denotes hail, while بارد describes something cold or cool.
Lexical sources also record sleep, becoming calm, becoming established, garments, and messenger travel. These branches do not establish that all forms arose directly from a single proven original image.
In Al-Anbiyāʾ 21:69, coldness accompanies safety and has a role in Abraham’s deliverance from injury by fire.
In Al-Nūr 24:43, hail appears amid clouds moving and piling up and precipitation falling. Ṣād 38:42 presents cool water in Job’s story; in Al-Wāqiʿah 56:44, the lack of coolness describes shade that brings no relief.
In Al-Nabaʾ 78:24, برد can lexically be associated with sleep, but coolness better fits the root’s usual meaning and the context.
The main conclusion is that coldness and coolness have no fixed moral or spiritual value in the Qur’an. They may bring comfort in one event, while extreme cold can itself cause harm in another setting. A phenomenon’s name, its effects, and its evaluation should remain distinct.
A suitable final definition for Forqan:
B R D in Arabic concerns coldness and coolness as opposed to heat. Within the family, بَرَد means hail and بارد means cold or cool. Extended uses also concern becoming calm, relief, and even sleep. The Qur’an uses the root for fire becoming cool for Abraham, hail, cool water, and deprivation of coolness in descriptions of punishment. Coldness, relief, and safety are not identical meanings; hail and coolness likewise differ despite sharing a root. Each form’s meaning must be understood from its word structure and the verse’s context.