The Qur’anic Root H W Y

Hawā yahwī: falling and moving in a direction

The sense of falling in early Arabic is clear and physical. In a poem by Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā, swift movement is compared with the fall of a bucket released by its rope:

يَشُقُّ بِهَا الأَمَاعِزَ فَهِيَ تَهْوِي
هُوِيَّ الدَّلْوِ أَسْلَمَهَا الرِّشَاءُ

Yashuqqu bihā l-amāʿiza fa-hiya tahwī / huwiyya d-dalwi aslamahā r-rishāʾ.

“He cuts through the stony ground with her as she plunges, like a bucket falling when its rope has let it go.”

Tahwī in this image describes the bucket’s swift downward movement. Such usage predates the Qur’an and shows that falling and descending were established meanings of this family.

At the beginning of Sūrat an-Najm, the Qur’an says: “وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَىٰ” (wa-n-najmi idhā hawā), “By an-najm when it descends” (An-Najm 53:1). Identifying the referent of an-najm is a separate matter; the verb hawā in the sentence itself expresses descent.

In Al-Ḥajj 22:31, the image is more intense: “أَوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ فِي مَكَانٍ سَحِيقٍ” (aw tahwī bihi r-rīḥu fī makānin saḥīq). The wind carries the person away and casts him down into a distant place. In Ṭā-Hā 20:81, too, “وَمَنْ يَحْلِلْ عَلَيْهِ غَضَبِي فَقَدْ هَوَىٰ” (wa-man yaḥlil ʿalayhi ghaḍabī fa-qad hawā) uses the image of falling for destruction and the collapse of a person’s condition.

An-Najm 53:53 has a different construction:

وَالْمُؤْتَفِكَةَ أَهْوَىٰ

Wa-l-muʾtafikata ahwā.

“And the overturned city He cast down.”

Ahwā here is Form IV: to cast something down. Al-muʾtafikah is its object. This occurrence should therefore not be grouped morphologically with the seven basic verbs. Here the movement shifts from “falling oneself” to “casting another down.”

An important distinction in Abraham’s prayer

Abraham’s prayer says:

فَاجْعَلْ أَفْئِدَةً مِنَ النَّاسِ تَهْوِي إِلَيْهِمْ

Fa-jʿal afʾidatan mina n-nāsi tahwī ilayhim.

“So cause hearts among the people to move and be drawn toward them.”

Ibrāhīm 14:37

At first glance, tahwī might be equated with tahwā meaning to like, but the two are not morphologically identical.

Al-Baqarah 2:87 reads:

بِمَا لَا تَهْوَىٰ أَنْفُسُكُمْ

Bi-mā lā tahwā anfusukum.

“With what your selves do not desire.”

Here تَهْوَىٰ (tahwā) comes from hawiya yahwā and means to desire.

But in Ibrāhīm 14:37:

تَهْوِي إِلَيْهِمْ

Tahwī ilayhim.

“Move toward them.”

The form is written with yāʾ and comes from hawā yahwī. Its meaning is closer to hastening, moving, or being drawn toward them.

The verse’s semantic image touches on desire and attraction, since hearts are drawn toward them. Morphologically, however, it should not be treated as direct evidence for the branch of personal desire.

Hawāʾ: empty and hollow

Ibrāhīm 14:43 says:

لَا يَرْتَدُّ إِلَيْهِمْ طَرْفُهُمْ وَأَفْئِدَتُهُمْ هَوَاءٌ

Lā yartaddu ilayhim ṭarfuhum wa-afʾidatuhum hawāʾ.

“Their gaze does not return to them, and their hearts are empty.”

Hawāʾ here is not the air we breathe or the earth’s atmosphere. Early Arabic also used it for something empty or hollow. Describing an ostrich, Zuhayr says:

كَأَنَّ الرَّحْلَ مِنْهَا فَوْقَ صَعْلٍ
مِنَ الظِّلْمَانِ جُؤْجُؤُهُ هَوَاءُ

Ka-anna r-raḥla minhā fawqa ṣaʿlin / mina ẓ-ẓilmāni juʾjuʾuhu hawāʾ.

“As though her saddle were upon a small-headed ostrich whose breast is hollow.”

Hawāʾ here describes an empty, hollow breast.

From the same field, the open space between earth and sky also came to be called hawāʾ. In afʾidatuhum hawāʾ, the primary image is hearts emptied and left vacant. Whether this emptiness results from terror, loss of concentration, or inner collapse is understood from the context; the word itself first expresses emptiness.

An early analysis of Arabic sought to identify “emptiness and falling” as this family’s common core. It offers an interesting explanation of the relationship between hawāʾ, hawā, and hāwiyah. It should nevertheless be treated as a linguistic analysis, not conclusive proof that every branch of the root necessarily developed along one historical path.

Hawiya yahwā: inward desire and its elevation into authority

The other branch of the root concerns liking and desiring. Al-Baqarah 2:87 says:

أَفَكُلَّمَا جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ بِمَا لَا تَهْوَىٰ أَنْفُسُكُمُ اسْتَكْبَرْتُمْ

A-fa-kullamā jāʾakum rasūlun bi-mā lā tahwā anfusukumu stakbartum.

“Whenever a Messenger brought something your selves did not desire, did you act arrogantly?”

The same construction appears in Al-Māʾidah 5:70. An-Najm 53:23 also speaks of “مَا تَهْوَى الْأَنْفُسُ” (mā tahwā l-anfus): what the selves desire.

The verb hawiya fundamentally expresses inclination and desire. Moral condemnation does not follow from the verbal pattern itself. Qur’anic usage of this branch, however, displays a striking pattern: wherever hawā and ahwāʾ are presented as authorities for conduct and judgment, the Qur’an places them in a critical context.

All ten occurrences of the singular noun hawā meaning desire, and all seventeen occurrences of ahwāʾ, appear in this cautionary setting.

An-Nisāʾ 4:135 says:

فَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا الْهَوَىٰ أَنْ تَعْدِلُوا

Fa-lā tattabiʿū l-hawā an taʿdilū.

“Do not follow desire, lest you depart from justice.”

Concerning David, we read:

فَاحْكُمْ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا تَتَّبِعِ الْهَوَىٰ فَيُضِلَّكَ عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ

Fa-ḥkum bayna n-nāsi bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-lā tattabiʿi l-hawā fa-yuḍillaka ʿan sabīli llāh.

“Judge between people in truth, and do not follow desire, lest it lead you away from the way of The God.”

Ṣād 38:26

The principal problem in these verses is not “having a desire” but following it: personal inclination takes the place of an external standard of truth.

The same network recurs throughout the Qur’an. After knowledge has arrived, there is a warning against following ahwāʾ. In Al-Māʾidah 5:48, ahwāʾ stands against “ما جاءك من الحق” (mā jāʾaka mina l-ḥaqq), what has come to you of the truth. In Al-Qaṣaṣ 28:50, the one who follows hawāhu, his desire, “بغير هدى من الله” (bi-ghayri hudan mina llāh), without guidance from The God, is described as the most astray. Al-Muʾminūn 23:71 even considers that, if truth itself followed people’s desires, the order of the heavens and earth would be ruined.

An important Qur’anic meaning emerges from these passages: hawā is personal desire and inclination; its danger begins when that desire shifts from something one chooses to an authority for determining what is true.

The distinction between the two reaches its sharpest expression in:

أَفَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُ

A-fa-raʾayta mani ttakhadha ilāhahu hawāh.

“Have you then seen the one who has taken his desire as his god?”

Here the distinction reaches its culmination.

Al-Jāthiyah 45:23

Al-Furqān 25:43 expresses the same point with this wording:

أَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُ

A-raʾayta mani ttakhadha ilāhahu hawāh.

“Have you seen the one who has taken his desire as his god?”

Such a person does not merely have a desire. He has raised hawāhu to the position of an object of worship and a source of command.

An-Najm 53:3 also says:

وَمَا يَنْطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَىٰ

Wa-mā yanṭiqu ʿani l-hawā.

“And he does not speak from desire.”

The contrast with the following verses, which concern revelation, shows that ʿani l-hawā describes speech originating in personal desire and orientation, as opposed to speech whose source is revelation.

Hawā should therefore not be translated simply as sexual desire or lust. Its scope is much wider: it can include belief, judgment, preference, political desire, intellectual inclination, or any other tendency that a person turns into a standard of truth.

Istahwat-hu sh-shayāṭīn and hāwiyah: being drawn away and falling

Al-Anʿām 6:71 contains the only occurrence of Form X:

كَالَّذِي اسْتَهْوَتْهُ الشَّيَاطِينُ فِي الْأَرْضِ حَيْرَانَ لَهُ أَصْحَابٌ يَدْعُونَهُ إِلَى الْهُدَى ائْتِنَا

Ka-lladhī stahwat-hu sh-shayāṭīnu fī l-arḍi ḥayrāna lahu aṣḥābun yadʿūnahu ilā l-hudā ʾtinā.

“Like one whom the devils have drawn away on earth, bewildered, while he has companions calling him to guidance: Come to us.”

For istahwā, Arabic records expressions in the field of carrying away someone’s desire and reason and leaving them bewildered, and relates it to both branches of the root. One analysis derives it from hawā yahwī, falling and carrying away; another connects it with hawiya yahwā and the pull of desire.

Understanding the verse does not require forcing a resolution of this historical disagreement. The context itself makes the result clear: the person is ḥayrān, bewildered; the devils have drawn him in one direction, while his companions call him toward al-hudā, guidance, from another. The image is of someone who has lost his direction and been carried away from the path of guidance.

Hāwiyah

In Al-Qāriʿah, we read:

وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَفَّتْ مَوَازِينُهُ فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا هِيَهْ نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ

Wa-ammā man khaffat mawāzīnuhu fa-ummuhu hāwiyah. Wa-mā adrāka mā hiyah. Nārun ḥāmiyah.

“As for the one whose scales are light, his mother is Hāwiyah. And what will make you know what it is? A blazing fire.”

Al-Qāriʿah 101:8, 101:9, 101:10, 101:11

Morphologically, hāwiyah is the feminine of hāwin, the active participle of hawā yahwī. This structure connects it directly to the family of falling.

Being an active participle should not, however, automatically produce the meaning “that which casts down.” The morphological form alone does not determine whether this usage means “that which falls,” “a place into which one falls,” or an established noun for the depth of a fall. Arabic also uses hāwiyah and mahwāh for a deep place or a place of falling.

After hāwiyah, the Qur’an itself opens a question and then says:

نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ

Nārun ḥāmiyah.

“A blazing fire.”

Here Hāwiyah thus acquires a specific referent in the hereafter, while retaining its connection with the root: a name in the field of descending and the depth of a fall.

The expression “فَأُمُّهُ هَاوِيَةٌ” (fa-ummuhu hāwiyah) raises a separate question about umm, examined in the study of the root ʾ M M. Here the discussion remains confined to the structure and meaning of hāwiyah.

H W Y in related Semitic languages

Comparative evidence shows that this family is not merely a development of later Arabic, but its pattern across Semitic languages is not uniform either.

A root with the consonants H W Y is reported in Ugaritic for wanting and desiring. Some readings of the texts relating to this root are disputed, but the presence of this field in Ugaritic is important evidence for the antiquity of the desire branch.

In Hebrew, too, the nearby family H W H has fields such as desire, wanting, destruction, and calamity in certain forms. Another nearby verbal form in that language developed senses of becoming and occurring. Aramaic and Syriac preserve the H W Y family chiefly in the sense of being and becoming.

In weak Semitic roots, variation and alternation involving final yāʾ, wāw, and hāʾ are recognized phenomena. Differences between the Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic forms therefore do not by themselves prevent historical comparison.

These data are interesting because traces of desire, occurring or becoming, and in some forms destruction also appear outside Arabic. Even in Ugaritic, the branch of wanting has considerable antiquity.

Nevertheless, Semitic comparison does not prove that desire in Arabic must have developed from falling, or the reverse. What can be said with greater confidence is that the family is very old, and the two fields of movement or falling and wanting or inclination have histories extending beyond Qur’anic usage.

Hawā in relation to shahwah and mayl

Hawā overlaps with two other families but is not identical with them.

Shahwah is closer to wanting something one finds desirable and pleasurable. The Qur’an speaks of ḥubb ash-shahawāt and uses mā yashtahūn for things people wish to enjoy.

Hawā can extend far beyond this field. A person may follow personal desire in judging, believing, interpreting reality, or choosing a course without bodily pleasure being involved. This is why the Qur’an places hawā against truth, knowledge, and guidance.

Mayl likewise concerns inclination and changing direction. “فَتَمِيلُوا مَيْلًا عَظِيمًا” (fa-tamīlū maylan ʿaẓīmā) emphasizes the image of deviating from a direction. In hawā, especially in its inward sense, the person’s own desire and attraction are more prominent.

These are not absolute boundaries. All three families may intersect in the field of wanting and inclination; the distinction must be understood from each sentence’s construction.

Translation guide

In the falling branch, هَوَى / يَهْوِي (hawā / yahwī) may mean “fell,” “descended,” “plunged,” or “moved swiftly in a direction,” depending on context. “تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ” (tahwī bihi r-rīḥ) describes movement and casting down by the wind. “تَهْوِي إِلَيْهِمْ” (tahwī ilayhim) in Ibrāhīm 14:37 is better understood as “hasten or be drawn toward them,” rather than equated with tahwā meaning to like.

In the desire branch, هَوِيَ / يَهْوَى (hawiya / yahwā) means “inclined,” “desired,” or “liked.”

The noun hawā in Qur’anic usage is usually personal desire, one’s own wishes, or inward inclination. “Whim” is too narrow for many verses, since it can suggest a passing wish or pleasure, whereas the Qur’an also speaks of hawā in matters of belief, judgment, and guidance.

Ahwāʾ means desires, inclinations, or may be retained as ahwāʾ, especially where these tendencies become authorities for decision in opposition to knowledge and truth.

Hawāʾ in Ibrāhīm 14:43 means empty or vacant.

Istahwat-hu in Al-Anʿām 6:71 expresses drawing a person away and depriving him of direction until he is bewildered.

Ahwā in An-Najm 53:53 means “cast down.”

Hāwiyah in Al-Qāriʿah comes from the same field of a deep fall; the Qur’an itself identifies its referent as nārun ḥāmiyah, a blazing fire.

Summary

The root H W Y comprises two important fields that should not be confused. Hawā yahwī concerns falling, descending, and moving swiftly in a direction; hawiya yahwā concerns desire and inward inclination. Hawāʾ expresses emptiness, while hāwiyah is morphologically connected directly with the falling branch.

Pre-Islamic poetry confirms both the images of falling and emptiness. Semitic evidence likewise shows that H W Y and nearby forms have a very ancient history: Ugaritic attests the wanting branch, while nearby forms in Hebrew and Aramaic preserve other fields, including desire, destruction, and becoming. This comparison establishes the family’s antiquity, not a certain historical sequence in which its meanings arose.

One of the Qur’an’s finest distinctions is between tahwī and tahwā. Tahwī ilayhim in Abraham’s prayer belongs to movement in a direction, whereas lā tahwā anfusukum belongs to desire. Similar English renderings should not conceal this morphological difference.

In the inward field, the Qur’an presents a highly consistent pattern. All nominal usages of al-hawā and ahwāʾ occur in critical contexts. Hawā becomes problematic when a person follows it and puts personal desire in the place of knowledge, truth, and guidance. Ittakhadha ilāhahu hawāhu expresses the most intense form of this process: personal desire is transformed from an inward wish into a source of command and a standard of truth.

Istahwat-hu sh-shayāṭīn depicts the same loss of direction in another form: someone bewildered between a call to guidance and another attraction. Hāwiyah presents the endpoint of falling in a depth that the Qur’an calls nārun ḥāmiyah.

A cautious conclusion for this root is:

H W Y: a family centered on movement and being drawn in a direction. In one branch this movement appears as falling and descending; in another, as inward desire and wanting. Hawā is condemned in Qur’anic usage when personal desire replaces knowledge, truth, and guidance as the authority one follows. Hawāʾ expresses emptiness, while hāwiyah is connected with the depth of a fall.