The Qur’anic root B Y D
Passing away, coming to an end, and perishing: from sunset and the desert to imagining that a garden will last forever
Qur’anic and lexical forms
بَادَ
(bāda)
Form I verb: passed away or perished
يَبِيدُ
(yabīdu)
Form I imperfect
تَبِيدَ
(tabīda)
Sole Qur’anic form; Al-Kahf 18:35
بَيْد
(bayd)
Lexical verbal noun; not Qur’anic
بَيَاد
(bayād)
Lexical verbal noun; not Qur’anic
بُيُود
(buyūd)
Lexical verbal noun; also used for sunset
بَيْدُودَة
(baydūdah)
Lexical verbal noun; not Qur’anic
أَبَادَ
(abāda)
Causative Form IV: destroyed; not Qur’anic
إِبَادَة
(ibādah)
Form IV verbal noun; not Qur’anic
بَائِد
(bāʾid)
Active participle; not Qur’anic
بَيْدَاء
(baydāʾ)
Desert; not Qur’anic
بَيْدَانَة
(baydānah)
Wild she-ass; disputed derivation; not Qur’anic
بَيْدَ
(bayda)
Distinct exceptive use; not Qur’anic
Arabic B Y D concerns something passing away, ending, or disappearing from a condition or position it previously occupied. It can describe actual destruction or the end of a visible presence without the thing itself being destroyed.
When a people passes away, death and the end of their lives may be intended. In the sunset expression, however, it is the sun’s presence in the observer’s view that ends, rather than the sun itself being destroyed.
Passing away in this family is therefore broader than physical destruction. That breadth does not mean the verb never concerns actual perishing, which the lexicons explicitly record.
The root occurs only once in the Qur’an, in Al-Kahf 18:35. In the story of the two garden owners, one of them views his wealth and flourishing garden and says:
Quranic Arabic Corpus: the sole occurrence in Al-Kahf 18:35
«مَا أَظُنُّ أَنْ تَبِيدَ هَٰذِهِ أَبَدًا»
mā aẓunnu an tabīda hādhihi abadan
He does not think that the garden will ever perish.
Tabīda here concerns the garden’s coming to an end in its flourishing and productive condition. Crucially, the sentence expresses its owner’s supposition, rather than a definitive Qur’anic assertion that the garden will endure.
From present prosperity he imagines endless permanence. The story’s continuation shows that this belief was mistaken.
The meaning of tabīda, the person’s belief about the garden’s permanence, and the story’s moral implications should remain distinct.
1. The semantic core in early Arabic
Ibn Fāris identifies one semantic principle for B Y D in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:
«وَهُوَ أَنْ يُودِيَ الشَّيْءُ»
wa-huwa an yūdiya al-shayʾu
Something passes away or comes to an end.
He continues:
«بَادَ الشَّيْءُ بَيْدًا وَبُيُودًا، إِذَا أَوْدَى»
bāda al-shayʾu baydan wa-buyūdan idhā awdā
Bāda al-shayʾu here denotes something passing away or perishing.
Maqāyīs al-Lughah: bayd and passing away
Kitāb al-ʿAyn explains bayd through bāda yabīdu and records the causative abādahu Allāhu.
Lisān al-ʿArab gives a wider set of verbal nouns: bayd, bayād, buyūd, and baydūdah.
Al-ʿAyn and lexical sources: verbal nouns and the causative
Two Arabic explanatory verbs matter here: inqaṭaʿa and dhahaba.
Inqaṭaʿa concerns ending or being cut off; dhahaba here concerns passing away or elapsing.
Bāda therefore cannot be restricted to a living creature’s death.
A living being may die, a settlement disappear, a people become extinct, or something’s visible presence end.
These uses share the loss of an existence, presence, or condition previously established.
Does bayd always mean complete, irreversible destruction?
Some uses concern destruction and perishing.
Absolute irreversibility in every circumstance should nevertheless not be added as a necessary lexical condition.
Early Arabic uses bādat al-shamsu for the sun’s setting.
Sunset does not destroy the sun. It disappears from the observer’s horizon while continuing to exist.
“Passing away or the ending of a thing’s presence or condition” therefore offers a broad definition, while some contexts do concern actual, complete destruction.
In Al-Kahf, the garden is the subject. Its passing away may concern ruin and the loss of its cultivation and produce.
The verb itself does not require its soil, water, trees, or all constituent materials to be entirely erased from existence.
Such an interpretation exceeds the lexical meaning.
2. Sunset and disappearance from view
Lisān al-ʿArab records bādat al-shamsu buyūdan on Sībawayh’s authority.
Lisān al-ʿArab: sunset on Sībawayh’s authority
The expression denotes sunset.
The sun leaves the observer’s sight and its visible daytime presence on the horizon ends.
Two points follow from this witness.
First, bāda does not necessarily concern a living being’s death or destruction.
Second, passing away can describe the end of presence in one situation while the thing continues to exist elsewhere.
This does not make B Y D merely disappearance from sight in every occurrence.
The death or destruction of a people involves more than temporary concealment from view.
The subject and circumstances determine each use’s meaning.
For tabīda in Al-Kahf 18:35, “perish” is suitable: it covers the garden’s ruin without specifying its manner or mechanism without evidence.
3. Baydāʾ: desert and extensive open land
Baydāʾ is a familiar word discussed in this family.
In early Arabic it denotes desert, extensive open plain, or remote land with little settlement or visible life.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn explains it as mafāzatun lā shayʾa fīhā, an empty wilderness.
In Lisān al-ʿArab, Ibn Shumayl describes relatively level, hard, sparsely wooded, extensive land that may take considerable time to cross.
Lisān al-ʿArab: Ibn Shumayl’s description of baydāʾ
Baydāʾ therefore does not exclusively denote sandy ground.
A wilderness may be stony or hard-soiled, and need not lack every plant and animal throughout its extent.
Its familiar features are expansiveness, remoteness, and difficulty of living in or crossing it.
Baydāʾ and perishing
Ibn Fāris relates baydāʾ to the same principle of perishing.
Ibn Jinnī also explains the name through the wilderness’s destroying those who enter or cross it.
The semantic connection is intelligible.
In extensive, dry country, someone may lose the way, suffer thirst, or fail to reach a settlement.
That relation does not establish a certain naming history.
The word may also relate to environmental features and lack of settlement. The historical direction of derivation needs independent evidence.
This article therefore understands baydāʾ as desert, treating its connection with perishing as a cautiously stated etymological explanation.
Nor does every wilderness necessarily destroy all travellers. Deserts can sustain human, animal, and plant life.
Baydāʾ means extensive wilderness, rather than death or destruction itself.
4. Witnesses from early Arabic poetry
Labīd ibn Rabīʿah: a people passing away
Labīd ibn Rabīʿah says in an ode:
فَبَادُوا فَمَا أَمْسَى عَلَى الْأَرْضِ مِنْهُمُ
لَعَمْرُكَ إِلَّا أَنْ يُخَبَّرَ سَائِلُ
fa-bādū fa-mā amsā ʿalā al-arḍi minhumu / la-ʿamruka illā an yukhabbara sāʾilu
Translation: “They passed away, and none of them remained on earth—by your life—except that someone asking may be told of them.”
Fa-bādū concerns a group of people here.
They once had a presence and standing but have now passed away, leaving only reports and memories.
The usage clearly illustrates perishing and the end of a group’s presence.
The persons’ passing away accompanies the continuing possibility of speaking about them.
Their destruction does not mean every trace and memory has disappeared.
A generation or community may end while its history, remains, or name remain known.
This accords with the lexicons’ bāda al-shayʾu.
Labīd was a mukhaḍram poet, living in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. The line is in his collected poetry, but its precise composition date does not establish it as certainly pre-Qur’anic.
It attests early Arabic usage; its date should not be asserted without firm evidence.
Imruʾ al-Qays: baydānah and a desert animal
Imruʾ al-Qays describes riding and hunting with his horse:
فَيَوْمًا عَلَى سِرْبٍ نَقِيٍّ جُلُودُهُ
وَيَوْمًا عَلَى بَيْدَانَةٍ أُمِّ تَوْلَبِ
fa-yawman ʿalā sirbin naqiyyin julūduhu / wa-yawman ʿalā baydānatin ummi tawlabi
Translation: “One day pursuing a herd of wild cattle with clean hides, another a wild she-ass with a foal.”
Baydānah denotes a wild she-ass here.
Al-Ṣiḥāḥ names the she-ass baydānah. Lisān al-ʿArab gives living in the baydāʾ as one explanation and also records an alternative first hemistich, wa-yawman ʿalā ṣalti al-jabīni musaḥḥajin, concerning a clear-browed, bitten wild ass.
Lisān al-ʿArab: julūduhu and the alternative hemistich
On that account, baydānah can identify a she-ass living in the wilderness.
Lexical sources disagree about its formation and naming.
One analysis derives it from association with baydāʾ and treats the nūn as additional.
Another relates it to the animal’s large body and treats the nūn as radical.
The poetic witness therefore does not establish that every letter of baydānah necessarily derives from the triliteral B Y D.
It shows that pre-Islamic poetic language used a name of this formation for a desert animal.
The lexical disagreement about its precise derivation should be retained.
Lisān al-ʿArab: two derivations of baydānah
Bayda meaning “except that”
Arabic bayda can also function like ghayra, meaning “except that.”
For example, huwa kathīru al-māli bayda annahu bakhīlun describes someone with abundant wealth who is nevertheless miserly.
Here bayda means neither perishing nor desert: it is a construction expressing exception or contrast.
Ibn Fāris treats it separately and says it diverges from the destruction principle, even allowing that it may form an independent principle.
Maqāyīs al-Lughah: exceptive bayda differs from the perishing principle
Grammatical sources record differing meanings and analyses for bayda.
Identical letters alone do not make this use evidence for the meaning of perishing.
This exceptive form does not occur in the Qur’an.
It consequently plays no part in determining Qur’anic tabīda.
5. Morphology and the sole Qur’anic occurrence
The basic verb is bāda.
Its imperfect is yabīdu; recognised verbal nouns include bayd, bayād, buyūd, and baydūdah.
Causative abāda means causing destruction or destroying.
Bāda al-qawmu describes a people perishing; abāda al-qawma introduces an agent causing their destruction.
Bāʾid is an active participle for something passing away or approaching destruction.
Ibādah is the Form IV verbal noun, meaning destroying.
This verbal noun concerns destroying something, whereas the basic verb can express the subject itself perishing.
These related forms should not turn Qur’anic tabīda into a causative verb.
The structure of tabīda
In Al-Kahf 18:35, tabīda is a Form I imperfect verb.
Initial tāʾ marks the third-person feminine singular here, since the referent is the garden, feminine jannah in Arabic.
Following an, the verb is subjunctive.
Hādhihi is the demonstrative occupying the nominative subject position of tabīda and refers to the indicated garden.
Al-Darwīsh: hādhihi is tabīda’s subject
The garden perishes; the sentence does not say its owner destroys it.
Tabīda itself introduces no human destroyer.
The verb concerns future destruction or its possibility within the speaker’s supposition.
Mā aẓunnu and abadan also require attention.
6. Qur’anic use: Al-Kahf 18:35
Verse text:
وَدَخَلَ جَنَّتَهُ وَهُوَ ظَالِمٌ لِنَفْسِهِ قَالَ مَا أَظُنُّ أَنْ تَبِيدَ هَٰذِهِ أَبَدًا
wa-dakhala jannatahu wa-huwa ẓālimun li-nafsihi qāla mā aẓunnu an tabīda hādhihi abadan
Translation:
“He entered his garden while wronging himself and said: I do not think that this garden will ever perish.”
The verse belongs to the story of two men.
Al-Kahf 18:32 describes two vineyards owned by one of them, surrounded by palm trees.
Al-Kahf 18:33 describes their produce and water flowing between them.
In Al-Kahf 18:34, the owner compares his wealth and following with the other man’s, claiming superiority in both.
He then enters his garden in Al-Kahf 18:35 and says he does not think it will ever perish.
The sequence matters.
He sees a beautiful garden after already asserting financial and social superiority.
His confidence in its permanence therefore arises within pride and misplaced trust in material prosperity.
Al-Ṭabarī: tabīda and the garden’s perishing
Mā aẓunnu: personal supposition rather than a definitive Qur’anic assertion
In mā aẓunnu an tabīda hādhihi abadan, mā aẓunnu belongs to the independent root Ẓ N N.
The man says he does not think this garden will perish.
That construction differs from “This garden will never perish.”
The first expresses the speaker’s belief or supposition.
The second makes a direct assertion about the garden.
In ordinary speech, “I do not think” can convey considerable confidence, particularly when accompanied by “ever.”
A translation should nevertheless preserve the verb of supposition.
“I do not think this garden will ever perish” thus follows the Arabic construction more closely than “This garden is eternal.”
The role of abadan
Abadan concerns ongoing time and the absence of an end within the utterance’s horizon.
Here it accompanies the speaker’s not expecting the garden’s destruction.
He is not simply saying it flourishes now or will probably bear fruit for many years.
He extends his supposition without envisaging an end to that condition.
That distinguishes his claim from an ordinary agricultural prediction.
A farmer may anticipate a garden remaining productive for years because of adequate water, suitable soil, and healthy trees.
Such a forecast differs from denying any possibility of ending or ruin.
The speaker moves from present cultivation to imagining endless permanence.
This comes from mā aẓunnu, tabīda, and abadan together, rather than from B Y D alone.
The referent of hādhihi
Hādhihi points to the garden.
Although the story begins with two gardens, Al-Kahf 18:35 uses singular jannatahu.
The translation should therefore retain “this garden.”
One can explain its place among the two gardens’ owner’s possessions without changing the verse’s singular into a plural.
A translation should respect the sentence’s structure even when the wider context is clear.
7. The garden’s fate and the supposition’s failure
The story’s continuation shows that the owner’s belief in his property’s permanence was mistaken.
In Al-Kahf 18:40 and Al-Kahf 18:41, his companion raises the possibility of harm from heaven, the garden becoming slippery ground, or its water sinking away.
Al-Kahf 18:42 describes encompassing damage to the garden’s yield and its ruin.
The owner grieves over what he has lost.
Al-Kahf 18:42
Verse text:
وَأُحِيطَ بِثَمَرِهِ فَأَصْبَحَ يُقَلِّبُ كَفَّيْهِ عَلَىٰ مَا أَنْفَقَ فِيهَا وَهِيَ خَاوِيَةٌ عَلَىٰ عُرُوشِهَا وَيَقُولُ يَا لَيْتَنِي لَمْ أُشْرِكْ بِرَبِّي أَحَدًا
wa-uḥīṭa bi-thamarihi fa-aṣbaḥa yuqallibu kaffayhi ʿalā mā anfaqa fīhā wa-hiya khāwiyatun ʿalā ʿurūshihā wa-yaqūlu yā laytanī lam ushrik bi-rabbī aḥadan
Translation:
“His yield was encompassed, and he began turning his hands in regret over what he had spent on it, while it lay collapsed upon its trellises. He said: If only I had associated no one with my Lord.”
B Y D is not repeated in this verse.
The event nevertheless relates directly to the owner’s words in Al-Kahf 18:35.
He had not thought the garden would perish; now it stands ruined.
Tabīda in Al-Kahf 18:35 thus concerns the garden’s passing away in its flourishing and productive condition.
Al-Ṭabarī: loss of the garden’s yield and its owner’s regret
Lexical meaning should remain distinct from the event’s manner.
Tabīda itself does not mean trellises collapsing, water drying up, or fruit being destroyed.
Other verses may describe these as forms or causes of ruin.
The verb directly means passing away or perishing.
Was the garden entirely erased from existence?
Al-Kahf 18:42 describes it lying collapsed upon its trellises.
Traces and constituent parts therefore remain in the scene.
The garden’s passing away need not mean every physical material has been destroyed.
Trees and structures may be ruined, with produce and function lost, while broken trunks, soil, or building remains persist.
Destruction here accords with the end of the garden’s previous cultivation, benefit, and structure.
Tabīda alone cannot establish a theory about the absolute annihilation of matter or disappearance of every component.
Does the story prohibit wealth and gardening?
The Qur’an itself describes the benefits of gardens, water, produce, and property in this story.
The owner’s problem is not simply possessing land and wealth.
His conduct combines arrogant comparison, wronging himself, mistaken confidence in lasting prosperity, and doubt about resurrection.
The story should therefore not become a declaration that gardening, ownership, or material benefit is inherently blameworthy.
The criticism concerns his relation to property and his understanding of its power, permanence, and ownership.
In Al-Kahf 18:39, his companion reminds him to acknowledge The God’s will and his dependence upon Him for strength when entering the garden.
That reminder does not make uttering a phrase automatically protect a garden from every disaster regardless of conduct and circumstances.
Recognising the gift’s place and the limits of human power is central.
8. The transience of worldly life
Al-Kahf 18:45 follows the story with an illustration of worldly life.
Life is compared with vegetation growing through rainwater and then drying and scattering.
The illustration relates to the garden story.
Neither depicts growth and cultivation as enduring independently of creation’s conditions.
Plants grow, bear fruit, and may then wither.
A garden flourishes and can later become ruined.
B Y D itself nevertheless does not mean plants drying or stalks scattering in the wind.
Al-Kahf 18:45 expresses that process through other words.
Bayd broadly concerns passing away; drying and scattering are particular forms of natural change.
Al-Kahf 18:46 calls wealth and children worldly life’s adornment and sets lasting good deeds against them.
This helps explain the story’s message without defining B Y D as the worthlessness of every worldly possession.
Gardens, property, and children can be gifts and fields of responsibility. They should not be imagined independent of The God or guaranteed endless permanence.
10. Translation proposals for Forqan
For destruction-related bāda, use “passed away” or “perished.”
For a people, “passed away,” or “became extinct” where extinction is clear, may fit.
Translate bādat al-shamsu as “the sun set.”
For abāda, use “destroyed” or “caused to perish.”
For ibādah, use “destroying” or “destruction,” including the destruction of populations or living beings where context specifies them.
For bāʾid, use “passing away,” “perishing,” or “perished” where a resulting condition is intended.
For baydāʾ, use “desert” or “extensive, remote plain.”
For exceptive bayda, use “except that” or “but,” depending on the sentence. That use does not determine the Qur’anic root’s meaning.
Translating the Qur’anic occurrence
Al-Kahf 18:35
«مَا أَظُنُّ أَنْ تَبِيدَ هَٰذِهِ أَبَدًا»
mā aẓunnu an tabīda hādhihi abadan
Proposed translation:
“I do not think this garden will ever perish.”
This retains several central features.
First, mā aẓunnu expresses the person’s supposition.
Second, tabīda concerns passing away or perishing.
Third, hādhihi points to the garden.
Fourth, abadan expresses the imagined absence of an end.
“I do not think this garden will ever be ruined” also fits the setting, but may overemphasise damage to structures or physical components.
“Perish” retains a broader sense of passing away.
By contrast, “This garden is eternal” omits supposition and turns the person’s words into a direct assertion.
“This garden will never dry up” restricts the verb to one possible mechanism of destruction.
“Its yield will never decrease” is likewise not tabīda’s direct meaning. A yield can fall without the garden perishing.
The basic translation should retain passing away or perishing, leaving ruin, heedlessness, pride, and the gift’s impermanence to explanation of the story.
11. Conclusion
Arabic B Y D concerns passing away, ending, and perishing.
Ibn Fāris gives something’s passing away as its principle.
Kitāb al-ʿAyn and Lisān al-ʿArab record bāda yabīdu in that sense.
Extended uses concern a people’s extinction, sunset, causing destruction, and wilderness.
Labīd’s poetry shows bādū describing a group no longer living and present on earth.
Imruʾ al-Qays uses baydānah for a wild she-ass, although its precise derivation from baydāʾ remains disputed.
Baydāʾ denotes extensive wilderness with little settlement. Early explanations connect the name with travellers perishing without conclusively establishing its historical naming.
Only tabīda in Al-Kahf 18:35 is Qur’anic.
The garden owner does not think his garden will ever perish. He has already claimed superiority in wealth and following and then doubts the Hour’s coming.
The garden subsequently suffers damage and ruin, exposing his mistaken confidence in endless property.
Tabīda’s lexical meaning should nevertheless remain distinct from the story’s full message.
It does not mean pride, disbelief, ingratitude, or denial of resurrection. The owner’s words, conduct, and wider context establish those concepts.
Nor does the verb alone establish the precise manner or natural cause of ruin, or the complete destruction of all garden materials.
Final root definition: B Y D concerns the passing away or ending of something’s presence, existence, or condition; according to the subject, it can express destruction, perishing, extinction, or disappearance.
It distinctively concerns the end of something previously existing or present, without making the mechanism of destruction or absolute irreversibility fixed components of every use.
Qur’anic tabīda concerns a garden whose owner trusts in its permanence.
Accordingly, “perish” is the most suitable basic equivalent for tabīda in Al-Kahf 18:35.
Present cultivation and material prosperity do not themselves prove endless permanence. That message follows from the story’s context; the root directly concerns passing away and perishing.