Qur’anic Root Ḥ R D

1. Forms and derivatives

The root ح ر د consists of ḥāʾ, rāʾ, and dāl. It is a sound, regular triliteral Arabic root.

Its principal forms include:

• حَرَدَ ـ يَحْرِدُ: Intended and made toward a goal; in another use, withdrew from one’s people.
• حَرْد: Purpose, serious resolve, and determination; in some uses, anger, withholding, or deprivation.
• حَرَد: Anger and agitation; in animal movement, an irregularity of gait.
• حَرِدَ ـ يَحْرَدُ: Became angry or entered a state of agitation and harshness.
• حَارِد: An angry person or animal; in another branch, a she-camel yielding little milk.
• حَرْدَان: Angry, or withdrawn and isolated, according to use.
• حَرِيد: Separate, solitary, and apart from a group.
• حُرَدَاء: A plural of حَرِيد for isolated persons.
• حُرُود: Withdrawal and separation; in other uses, a plural of certain related nouns.
• تَحَرَّدَ: Withdrew or separated from a group.
• مُنْحَرِد: Isolated and solitary.
• حَارَدَ ـ يُحَارِدُ: Of livestock, its milk diminished or stopped; of a year, rain became scarce.
• حِرَاد: Diminishing or ceasing milk in an animal.
• حَرُود: A she-camel yielding little milk.
• أَحْرَد: An animal whose limbs move irregularly.
• حَرْدَاء: The feminine of أَحْرَد in describing an animal.
• حَرَّدَ ـ يُحَرِّدُ: In some uses, withheld; in another, twisted something such as a rope into an uneven or ridged form.
• تَحْرِيد: Withholding; in early technical uses, twisting or shaping something in a particular way.
• مُحَرَّد: Curved, bent, or unevenly twisted and ridged.

Not all these forms occur in the Qur’an.

The root’s only Qur’anic form is حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25.

It is a singular, indefinite noun in the genitive after the preposition عَلَىٰ.

Thus, the verbs حَرَدَ, حَرِدَ, حَارَدَ, and حَرَّدَ, and the derivatives حَرِيد, حَارِد, حَرُود, and أَحْرَد do not occur in the Qur’anic text.

These forms help establish the root’s semantic range, but their meanings should not all be read into the single Qur’anic occurrence of حَرْد.

Quranic Arabic Corpus: the sole occurrence in Al-Qalam 68:25

2. Semantic centers in early Arabic

Three principal branches in Maqāyīs al-Lughah

In Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris identifies three semantic bases for ح ر د:

الْقَصْدُ، وَالْغَضَبُ، وَالتَّنَحِّي

al-qaṣdu wa-al-ghaḍabu wa-al-tanaḥḥī

That is: “Purpose, anger, and withdrawal.”

This classification matters because, unlike his treatment of some roots, Ibn Fāris does not reduce all uses of ح ر د to one basis.

In the first branch, someone proceeds toward an action with a definite intention and focus.

In the second, anger and agitation are involved.

In the third, separation from others and withdrawal from a group are prominent.

Withholding and deprivation are also recorded in other lexicons and relate to some uses involving the cessation of a benefit or the exclusion of others.

These meanings may converge in certain situations. Someone may, for example, angrily decide to deprive another of a right.

But the proximity of several human behaviors does not mean that the word simultaneously expresses all three meanings in every sentence.

Maqāyīs al-Lughah: purpose, anger, and withdrawal

Purpose and serious resolve

In Al-Ṣiḥāḥ, Al-Jawharī writes:

حَرَدَ يَحْرِدُ حَرْدًا: قَصَدَ

ḥarada yaḥridu ḥardan: qaṣada

That is: “He intended or made toward something.”

He then gives the expression:

حَرَدْتُ حَرْدَكَ

ḥaradtu ḥardaka

That is: “I intended what you intended.”

In Lisān al-ʿArab, الحَرْد is likewise explained through الْجِدّ وَالْقَصْد, seriousness and purpose.

Here جِدّ concerns seriousness and firmness in carrying out an action.

Thus, ḥard can refer to a decision taken seriously, toward whose execution a person proceeds.

Yet ḥard does not necessarily mean that the goal is right.

Someone may seriously resolve to do good, or proceed just as earnestly toward wrongdoing.

Purpose and resolve do not themselves determine the goal’s moral value.

An early rajaz witness about a flood

Maqāyīs al-Lughah and Al-Ṣiḥāḥ transmit this Arabic rajaz verse, with differences in its opening wording:

أَقْبَلَ سَيْلٌ جَاءَ مِنْ أَمْرِ اللَّهِ
يَحْرُدُ حَرْدَ الْجَنَّةِ الْمُغِلَّهْ

aqbala saylun jāʾa min amri Allāhi / yaḥrudu ḥarda al-jannati al-mughillah

That is: “A flood came by God’s command, making directly toward the productive garden.”

Here يَحْرُدُ حَرْدَ concerns intending and directing oneself toward a goal.

The flood moves toward the garden as though it had made the garden its destination.

This image does not mean that a flood possesses human moral choice and conscious will.

The poet uses the language of intention and purposeful motion to describe the direction of the water.

The witness matters because it shows the sense of purpose in a use independent of the garden owners’ story.

However, the verse is not attributed to a named poet in these sources, and its wording varies, including أَقْبَلَ سَيْلٌ, وَجَاءَ سَيْلٌ, and قَدْ جَاءَ سَيْلٌ.

It should therefore be treated as an early rajaz witness of unknown authorship, without confidently assigning it to a pre-Islamic poet.

Al-Ṣiḥāḥ and Maqāyīs al-Lughah: purpose and variants of the flood witness

Anger and agitation

In the second branch, حَرَد concerns anger and harshness.

In Kitāb al-ʿAyn, Al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad explains this use in terms of someone becoming angry and rising against the person who provoked that anger.

In Lisān al-ʿArab, حَرِدَ likewise means becoming angry, and حَارِد denotes an angry person.

Differences in vocalization must nevertheless be considered.

Some transmissions use حَرَد, with fatḥah on rāʾ, for anger; others also record حَرْد with sukūn on rāʾ.

Early lexicographers disagreed about the more common vocalization.

Thus, the sukūn in Qur’anic حَرْدٍ alone cannot establish that the sense of anger is impossible.

Conversely, the presence of anger in the lexicons does not prove that it is the principal intended meaning in Al-Qalam.

Context and further evidence are needed to select the sense.

A poetic witness concerning anger

A verse attributed to Al-Ashhab ibn Rumaylah reads:

أُسُودُ شَرًى لَاقَتْ أُسُودَ خَفِيَّةٍ
تَسَاقَوْا عَلَى حَرْدٍ دِمَاءَ الْأَسَاوِدِ

usūdu sharan lāqat usūda khafiyyatin / tasāqaw ʿalā ḥardin dimāʾa al-asāwidi

That is: “The lions of Sharā met the lions of Khafiyyah; in anger and hostility they made one another drink the blood of the brave.” In Khizānat al-Adab, interpreting الأساود as the brave is one explanation; the alternative of black serpents is also recorded. The word should not be treated as an unambiguous lexical equivalent of “the brave.”

In this verse, حَرْد accompanies a fierce and bloody encounter.

Anger and resentment are therefore suitable senses here.

Seriousness and purpose in confrontation can also be perceived in the image, but the martial context brings anger to the foreground.

The verse is recorded in literary and lexical sources, including Khizānat al-Adab.

Its attribution to Al-Ashhab ibn Rumaylah is transmitted in the sources, though some wording varies.

Khizānat al-Adab identifies Al-Ashhab as a mukhadram poet who lived in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. His lifetime alone does not date this particular verse; it should not be presented as securely pre-Islamic.

Its value here lies in attesting ḥard for anger and fierce confrontation in classical Arabic.

Khizānat al-Adab: explanations of al-asāwid and Al-Ashhab as a mukhadram poet

Withdrawal and separation

In the third branch, حَرَدَ عَنْ قَوْمِهِ means leaving one’s people and withdrawing from the group.

حَرِيد likewise describes someone or something solitary and apart from others.

Al-Ṣiḥāḥ records the sense of isolated or solitary for حَرِيد.

كَوْكَبٌ حَرِيدٌ also describes a star seen apart from other stars.

Here the issue is separation from a group, rather than anger or depriving another person.

A person may distance themselves voluntarily, or remain alone because of social circumstances and external conditions.

حريد alone does not establish that withdrawal always signals weakness, pride, or hostility.

A poetic witness from Jarīr

Jarīr, the Umayyad-era poet, says:

نَبْنِي عَلَى سَنَنِ الْعَدُوِّ بُيُوتَنَا
لَا نَسْتَجِيرُ وَلَا نَحُلُّ حَرِيدَا

nabnī ʿalā sanani al-ʿaduwwi buyūtanā / lā nastajīru wa-lā naḥullu ḥarīdan

That is: “We build our houses along the enemy’s path; we neither seek protection nor settle apart as an isolated group.”

Here حَرِيدًا concerns being isolated and alone.

The poet’s point is that his people do not withdraw from others out of weakness or require others’ protection for their security.

The witness shows ḥarīd in the social and tribal language of Arabic.

But Jarīr lived in the Islamic period; this verse is not a pre-Islamic witness.

حَارَدَتِ النَّاقَةُ: diminishing or ceasing milk

In another branch, حَارَدَتِ النَّاقَةُ is used when a she-camel’s milk diminishes or stops.

Al-Ṣiḥāḥ relates حِرَاد to a reduction in livestock’s milk.

حَرُود is also recorded for a she-camel that yields little milk.

In this use, something that normally provides a benefit no longer supplies the same amount.

Lexicographers have accordingly related this use to withholding.

But the she-camel has not necessarily made a conscious decision to deprive a person.

Her milk may have diminished because of her physical condition or other circumstances.

Deprivation of a benefit therefore does not always entail a conscious intention to deprive.

This distinction matters in the garden owners’ story: unlike a natural decline in an animal’s milk, the owners themselves decide to prevent a needy person from entering.

حَارَدَتِ السَّنَةُ: scarce rainfall

Arabic also uses حَارَدَتِ السَّنَةُ for a year whose rain and yield have diminished.

This does not mean that a year has become angry like a person.

The point is the reduction of rainfall and the benefit expected from it.

Such a use emphasizes the resulting shortage or deprivation.

Its relation to حاردت الناقة is clear: milk diminishes in one case, rain in the other.

But these examples do not establish that Qur’anic ḥard means drought or the garden’s infertility.

In Al-Qalam, the concern before arrival at the garden is its owners’ intention and behavior.

Irregular movement and curvature

Kitāb al-ʿAyn and Lisān al-ʿArab record أَحْرَد for an animal with an irregularity in the movement of a foreleg or hindleg.

Some explanations relate this condition to an affected sinew or to the effects of hobbling the animal.

حَبْلٌ مُحَرَّدٌ also denotes a rope whose strands are twisted unevenly or with projecting ridges.

Ibn Fāris relates this branch to departure from an ordinary condition and deviation from normal form or movement.

These uses help establish the breadth of the lexical family.

Yet they do not establish that حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25 means a leg disorder, walking crookedly, or a twisted rope.

The verse contains no evidence for such referents.

Lisān al-ʿArab and Al-Ṣiḥāḥ: withdrawal, reduced milk, gait, and rope twisting

3. Qur’anic use of حَرْد

Al-Qalam 68:25: setting out with firm purpose

Arabic verse:

وَغَدَوْا عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ قَادِرِينَ

wa-ghadaw ʿalā ḥardin qādirīna

Proposed Persian translation, rendered here in English:

“And they set out in the morning with firm resolve, able to act.”

Here حَرْدٍ follows the preposition عَلَىٰ.

غَدَوْا comes from غ د و and concerns setting out or moving early in the day.

قَادِرِينَ comes from ق د ر and describes the garden owners’ state as they depart.

Study of Q D R

Three semantic components should therefore be distinguished:

First, morning departure.

Second, حَرْد, expressing purpose, resolve, or the state accompanying their departure.

Third, قَادِرِينَ, concerning their ability.

Syntactically, عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ can describe their state and the direction of their resolve while departing. قَادِرِينَ is accusative and functions as a circumstantial qualifier.

The sentence therefore reports both a morning departure and the state and resolve accompanying it.

Why does purpose and resolve matter?

Early lexicons record حَرْد for purpose and seriousness.

In Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, Al-Farrāʾ likewise explains this use through seriousness and the ability they believed themselves to possess.

After reporting different interpretations, Al-Ṭabarī prefers purpose and a decision on which the garden owners had agreed.

This reading fits the verse’s construction.

They go to their garden early, having decided to carry out an action.

عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ can thus indicate their firm purpose and serious resolve.

But the word itself does not say whether that decision was right or wrong.

The decision’s moral direction becomes clear from the preceding verses.

Al-Ṭabarī: preference for purpose and the owners’ belief in their ability

The preceding verse: excluding a needy person

Al-Qalam 68:24, Arabic:

أَنْ لَا يَدْخُلَنَّهَا الْيَوْمَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِسْكِينٌ

an lā yadkhulannahā al-yawma ʿalaykum miskīnun

Proposed Persian translation, rendered here in English:

“That no needy person shall enter it upon you today.”

This verse makes the owners’ intention explicit.

They want to harvest their produce without any needy person entering the garden.

This decision relates to حَرْد in the following verse.

When the Qur’an says they departed with ḥard, the context connects their purpose with depriving the needy.

The sense of withholding has accordingly also been proposed in interpretation.

Nevertheless, these two propositions differ:

One is that حَرْد in Arabic can denote purpose and resolve.

The other is that the owners’ purpose in this story was to prevent a needy person’s entry.

Direct translation should not collapse these two levels into a single word without justification.

For example, translating حَرْد solely as “stinginess” loses the established sense of purpose and resolve.

Conversely, reducing the verse to an ordinary, neutral decision overlooks its connection with the owners’ explicit intention in the preceding verse.

حَرْد as withholding and deprivation

Abū ʿUbaydah and some other lexicographers explain عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ through withholding; in the narrative context, the withholding concerns the needy.

This reading has clear contextual support: Al-Qalam 68:24 explicitly states the decision to prevent a needy person’s entry.

Lexicons also record withholding under this root; Lisān al-ʿArab explicitly gives the Form II حَرَّدَ الشَّيْءَ, meaning to withhold it.

The uses حَارَدَتِ النَّاقَةُ and حَارَدَتِ السَّنَةُ also show that this family can concern the diminution or cessation of a benefit.

The inference nevertheless requires care.

A year’s scarce rain being described with حاردت does not make every ḥard an intentional act of deprivation.

In the garden owners’ story, the deliberate character of their decision follows from their own speech.

Withholding is therefore a defensible reading here, but should not be presented as the sole lexical possibility.

Al-Ṭabarī’s transmission from Abū ʿUbaydah: withholding alongside purpose and anger

حَرْد as anger

Some exegetical explanations also interpret عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ as anger and harshness.

This reading relates to the recorded use of ḥard for anger.

The owners may have resented the needy entering and benefiting from the garden.

But the preceding verses do not explicitly state that they were angry as they departed.

What is clearer is their decision to harvest and prevent a needy person from entering.

Anger is thus lexically possible but has less direct contextual support than purpose and resolve.

A particular psychological state should not be assigned to the owners solely because a dictionary records anger.

Does withdrawal also express the verse’s meaning?

Maqāyīs al-Lughah identifies withdrawal as one of the root’s three principal branches.

Meanwhile, the owners want to harvest without the needy being present.

This may suggest an image of separating themselves from others.

But the verse contains no independent verb for withdrawing from society.

They are going to their garden and have a decision about a needy person’s entry.

Thus, although ḥarīd for someone solitary or isolated belongs to the same family, it should not be transferred without evidence into the direct meaning of حَرْدٍ here.

The role of قَادِرِينَ

قَادِرِينَ and حَرْد do not share a root.

The former comes from ق د ر and describes the owners’ state in this sentence.

In this context, they set out believing themselves able to carry out their purpose, as Al-Ṭabarī explains. This does not establish actual ability to obtain produce from a garden already damaged.

The subsequent account reveals that the garden had been damaged before they arrived.

The decision and ability they had in mind when departing were therefore insufficient to secure the intended result.

This contrast matters to the narrative.

They plan to harvest and deprive others of the produce, but themselves encounter deprivation.

Nevertheless, the meaning of قَادِرِينَ should not be transferred to حَرْد itself.

حَرْد expresses purpose and resolve; قَادِرِينَ expresses ability.

The result of the owners’ decision

Al-Qalam 68:27, Arabic:

بَلْ نَحْنُ مَحْرُومُونَ

bal naḥnu maḥrūmūna

Proposed Persian translation, rendered here in English:

“Rather, we have been deprived.”

Here مَحْرُومُونَ comes from ح ر م, not ح ر د.

Thematically, however, it has an important connection with the story.

The owners wanted to prevent a needy person from benefiting; in the end, they themselves are deprived of their garden’s produce.

This contrast creates a clear moral point within the narrative.

But similarity between deprivation and one use of ḥard does not make محرومون a derivative of ح ر د.

The two families have different root consonants.

Nor does the account establish that every economic deprivation in the world necessarily punishes someone’s stinginess or injustice.

In this particular narrative, the Qur’an relates a specific group’s conduct and decision to their outcome.

Extending that outcome to all poor people or those suffering loss requires independent evidence.

4. Assessing the different readings of حَرْد

Several principal readings have been proposed for حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25.

First reading: purpose and serious resolve

On this reading, the owners depart with a definite purpose and a previously formed decision.

This sense fits Ibn Fāris, Al-Jawharī, and other lexicographers’ explanations.

The construction عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ and their morning departure also support it.

The preceding verses likewise show that they had planned to harvest.

This reading therefore has strong lexical and contextual support.

Second reading: intending to withhold and deprive

On this reading, ḥard refers to preventing others from benefiting.

The owners’ explicit decision in Al-Qalam 68:24 provides important support.

Withholding is also recorded in the lexicons.

This reading is therefore defensible too.

Some of its meaning may nevertheless come from context: ḥard may express purpose, while the story identifies that purpose as deprivation.

Deprivation is therefore better explained as the direction and object of their decision, rather than the entire semantic range of the word being reduced to it.

Third reading: anger

On this reading, the owners departed angrily and harshly.

Anger is an established Arabic sense with poetic witnesses.

But the story clearly describes their decision rather than the cause and intensity of anger during their departure.

Thus, anger is lexically valid, but appears less strong than purpose and resolve for the principal translation of the verse.

Fourth reading: withdrawal

This reading relates to ḥarīd and حَرَدَ عَنْ قَوْمِهِ.

Yet the Qur’anic expression itself contains no independent indication that the owners became solitary or isolated.

Their aim is to exclude the needy, not necessarily to leave their people.

This sense matters for the lexical family but has less support in the verse’s principal translation.

Assessment

Taken together, the evidence makes “purpose and firm resolve” the most suitable basic sense of حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25 in this study’s assessment.

But this purpose is not neutral and unspecified within the story.

The preceding verses show that the owners decided to exclude the needy from entry and benefit.

Reflection on the verse should therefore preserve both the lexical sense of purpose and resolve and the wrongful direction of that resolve in the story.

5. Differences from related roots

Ḥ R D and Q Ṣ D: purpose and directed movement

قَصَدَ concerns making toward a destination and intending something.

One use of حَرَدَ has the same meaning.

The words explain one another in the early expression حَرَدْتُ حَرْدَكَ.

But ح ر د also has branches involving anger, withdrawal, and diminished benefit.

Its derivatives cannot all be restricted to purpose.

Ḥ R D and ʿ Z M: decision and firmness of will

عَزَمَ concerns deciding and becoming firm in will.

Qur’anic حَرْد can approach purpose and seriousness.

But ʿazm does not necessarily mean anger, withholding, or withdrawal.

“Firm resolve” is therefore a suitable equivalent in Al-Qalam 68:25, but does not explain the whole ح ر د family.

Ḥ R D and M N ʿ: an intention to deprive and prevention

مَنَعَ concerns preventing and withholding.

حَرَّدَ likewise refers to withholding in some Arabic uses.

In the garden owners’ story, withholding has contextual importance.

But ḥard itself may emphasize their decision, with the object of prevention supplied by the preceding verse.

Every ḥard should therefore not be equated with manʿ without examination.

Study of M N ʿ

Ḥ R D and GH Ḍ B: anger and agitation

غَضِبَ concerns becoming angry.

One semantic branch of حَرِدَ has the same sense.

But Arabic ḥard also has the meanings of purpose and withdrawal.

These families therefore overlap in some uses, rather than in all of them.

Study of GH Ḍ B

Ḥ R D and Ḥ R M: withholding and deprivation

حَرَمَ means depriving someone of something, while حُرْمَة and حَرَام relate to inviolability and prohibition. These forms and constructions should be distinguished.

حَرْد can also relate to withholding and prevention.

In the garden owners’ story, these semantic fields approach one another.

They intend to deprive a needy person and are then themselves deprived of their garden’s produce.

Nevertheless, مَحْرُومُونَ in Al-Qalam 68:27 comes from ح ر م.

It must not be assigned to ح ر د.

Study of Ḥ R M

Ḥ R D and Ḥ R TH: decision and cultivated land

حَرْث comes from ح ر ث and concerns cultivation and cultivated land.

Al-Qalam 68:22 uses حَرْثِكُمْ.

But Al-Qalam 68:25 uses حَرْدٍ.

Though similar in writing, the words have different roots.

The first concerns cultivated land and its produce.

The second concerns the owners’ purpose and resolve in this context.

عَلَىٰ حَرْدٍ should therefore not be translated as “upon cultivated land.”

Study of Ḥ R TH

Ḥ R D and Ṣ R M: purpose and cutting the harvest

صَرَمَ concerns cutting and severing.

The garden owners’ story uses this family for harvesting.

But ḥard itself does not mean cutting fruit or felling trees.

Harvesting is the action they decided to perform, whereas ḥard describes the state and direction of their resolve.

This distinction is necessary for accurate translation.

Ḥ R D and J D D: purpose and seriousness

جِدّ in Arabic concerns seriousness and firm effort.

Lexicographers explain حَرْد through جِدّ in some uses.

But seriousness does not itself establish that an action is right.

Someone may also be very serious about wrongdoing.

In Al-Qalam 68:25, the owners’ seriousness accompanies their decision to exclude a needy person.

Seriousness here thus describes their conduct; it does not morally commend it.

6. Interpretive challenges and semantic development

Does حَرْد always have a negative meaning?

No.

Intending something and taking a serious decision are not inherently wrong.

But in the garden owners’ story, the aim of their decision is wrong.

The moral value of this ḥard is therefore known from the story’s context, not from the root itself.

Conversely, anger and withholding can also accompany different kinds of behavior in Arabic.

The whole ح ر د family should therefore not be reduced to stinginess or hostility.

Does حَرْد mean only stinginess?

Stinginess is one concept relevant to explaining the garden owners’ behavior.

They want to keep the produce for themselves and exclude the needy.

But lexically, ḥard also concerns purpose, withholding, anger, and withdrawal.

Stinginess therefore explains the direction of their decision, rather than fully translating every sense of this root.

Is the owners’ anger certain in the verse?

Anger is a valid meaning of ḥard.

Contextually, however, their decision and purpose are expressed more clearly.

The preceding verse explicitly speaks of preventing a needy person’s entry.

By contrast, no specific cause for anger is stated.

Without adequate evidence, anger cannot be declared their sole psychological state.

Does قَادِرِينَ mean succeeding?

No.

قَادِرِينَ expresses ability, not the achievement of success.

Someone may be capable of planning and setting out without obtaining the desired result.

The owners likewise depart expecting to obtain the produce, but find a damaged garden.

This distinction matters to the narrative.

Serious resolve and a sense of ability do not guarantee the outcome.

Is the account only about harvesting?

Harvesting is an important part of the story.

But Al-Qalam 68:24 shows that the owners’ relationship with a needy person is also involved.

Speaking only of an early harvest obscures the moral direction of their decision.

Conversely, translating ḥard itself as “injustice” removes its direct lexical meaning.

The accurate approach examines meaning and context separately, while relating them to one another.

Does the owners’ deprivation justify judging all poor people?

No.

This Qur’anic account concerns a group with a specific decision and behavior.

Their deprivation occurs within that same narrative.

The event does not establish that every poor person, someone suffering loss, or someone in distress must have been deprived because of their own stinginess or wrongdoing.

Such a generalization follows neither from the meaning of ḥard nor from the story’s context.

7. Translation proposals for Forqan

For حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25, “purpose,” “resolve,” “serious decision,” and “firm resolve” have lexical support.

In context, “firm resolve” is a suitable equivalent for the verse’s direct wording.

The complete proposed translation can read:

“And they set out in the morning with firm resolve, able to act.”

The contextual explanation should clarify that their purpose was to harvest and prevent a needy person from entering.

“Intending to deprive the needy” is also defensible in relation to the story, but incorporates part of the preceding verse’s explanation into the translation of ḥard itself.

Thus, “firm resolve” is more suitable for direct translation, and “firm resolve to deprive the needy” for reflection.

“In anger” is also a lexical possibility, but has less contextual support than purpose and resolve for the principal translation.

Withdrawal and solitude are established for forms such as ḥarīd, but are not the most suitable choices for directly translating Al-Qalam 68:25.

The Forqan word box should distinguish two independent fields:

Brief root meaning: “Serious purpose and resolve; anger, withdrawal, and in some uses withholding or the cessation of a benefit.”

Meaning in this verse: “The garden owners’ firm purpose and resolve as they depart in the morning; in the narrative context, a decision connected with preventing the needy from entering.”

This distinction preserves both the root’s meaning and the moral direction of the story.

8. Conclusion

The Arabic root ح ر د has several semantic branches.

Ibn Fāris identifies purpose, anger, and withdrawal as its three axes.

Other sources also record withholding and deprivation.

Within this family, حَارَدَتِ النَّاقَةُ concerns diminished or ceasing milk, حَارَدَتِ السَّنَةُ scarce rainfall, and حَرِيد someone or something isolated.

Early poetic witnesses attest these meanings in Arabic usage; their individual dates must nevertheless be distinguished from the dates of the later lexicons and commentaries that transmit them.

The root occurs only once in the Qur’an: حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25.

Here the garden owners set out early with a firm purpose.

Context makes clear that their decision concerns harvesting and preventing a needy person from entering.

Withholding therefore also has a place in interpreting the verse.

But the lexical meaning of ḥard should not be completely equated with the owners’ moral conduct.

This study concludes that “purpose and firm resolve” is the most suitable direct meaning of حَرْدٍ in Al-Qalam 68:25, while the direction of that purpose—depriving the needy—is established by the surrounding verses.

This distinction matters for translation.

حرد expresses their resolve and state while departing; the preceding verses identify its object; and subsequent verses show that confidence in their ability did not secure the expected outcome.

For Forqan, retaining “firm resolve” in translation and explaining the intention to deprive in reflection is therefore more precise than reducing the root’s entire meaning to stinginess, anger, or withholding.