Qur’anic root H Z L (هَزَلَ)
Joking and nonserious speech; its contrast with decisive, responsible speech, and its distinction from bodily thinness and weakness
Qur’anic and lexical forms
هَزْل
(hazl)
The only Qur’anic form; Al-Ṭāriq 86:14
هَزَلَ
(hazala)
Form I: he joked; not Qur’anic
هَازِل
(hāzil)
Active participle: someone joking; not Qur’anic
هَازَلَ
(hāzala)
Form III: joked with another; not Qur’anic
مُهَازَلَة
(muhāzalah)
Form III verbal noun: banter; not Qur’anic
هَزْلَة
(hazlah)
One instance of jesting; not Qur’anic
هِزِّيل
(hizzīl)
Much given to joking; not Qur’anic
هَزِيل
(hazīl)
Thin or lean; not Qur’anic
هُزَال
(huzāl)
Thinness; not Qur’anic
هُزِلَ
(huzila)
Passive form: became thin; not Qur’anic
مَهْزُول
(mahzūl)
Thin or emaciated; not Qur’anic
أَهْزَلَ
(ahzala)
Someone’s livestock became thin; not Qur’anic
1. Introducing the root and its semantic fields
The three-letter root H Z L has two familiar semantic fields in Arabic: first, joking, jesting, and a lack of seriousness in speech or conduct; second, thinness, leanness, and diminished bodily strength in people or animals.
In the first field, hazl stands opposite jidd, seriousness. Someone who engages in hazl speaks nonseriously, in jest or for amusement. The word can also describe speech lacking substance or content worthy of attention.
In the second field, huzāl denotes thinness or leanness. An animal made thin by insufficient food or illness is called mahzūl.
These fields belong to one lexical family, but their meanings must remain distinct in translation. Calling speech hazl does not refer to bodily thinness; calling a camel mahzūl does not mean that the animal is joking.
The root H Z L occurs only once in the Qur’an, as al-hazli in Al-Ṭāriq 86:14. It belongs to the first field: joking and nonserious speech. No verb or other derivative of this root occurs in the Qur’an.
2. The semantic core and important forms
Two uses and their relationship
Ibn Fāris writes of this root in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:
الْهَاءُ وَالزَّاءُ وَاللَّامُ كَلِمَتَانِ فِي قِيَاسٍ وَاحِدٍ، يَدُلَّانِ عَلَى ضَعْفٍ
al-hāʾu wa-al-zāʾu wa-al-lāmu kalimatāni fī qiyāsin wāḥidin, yadullāni ʿalā ḍaʿfin
“Hāʾ, zāy, and lām have two lexical expressions within a single semantic analogy, both indicating weakness.”
He then places hazl opposite seriousness and huzāl opposite fatness.
This explanation proposes a shared feature for the two fields. Bodily huzāl involves diminished flesh and strength; verbal hazl involves the withdrawal of seriousness and firmness from speech.
A lexicographer’s proposed shared feature must nevertheless be distinguished from a word’s direct meaning.
Hazl in the sense of joking need not be linguistically weak, false, or worthless speech. Someone may express a truth through a joke. Conversely, a statement may be delivered very seriously yet be false.
Ibn Fāris’s explanation therefore does not establish that every joke lacks truth or that every serious utterance is true. “Weakness” here is an attempt to identify a semantic connection between two branches, rather than a conclusive measure of the value of all speech.
Important Arabic forms
Hazala yahzilu hazlan (هَزَلَ يَهْزِلُ هَزْلًا) is a Form I verb meaning “he joked” or “was not serious in speech or conduct.” Some lexical accounts also record a different vocalization of the verb.
Hazl (هَزْل) is the verbal noun and noun for this field: joking, jesting, or nonserious speech. This is the nominal form found in the Qur’an.
Hāzil (هَازِل) is an active participle describing someone who jokes or does not intend an utterance seriously.
Hāzala (هَازَلَ) is a Form III verb, commonly referring to joking with someone else.
Muhāzalah (مُهَازَلَة) is its verbal noun and can express joking or banter between people.
Hazlah (هَزْلَة) denotes a single joke or particular instance of jesting.
Hizzīl (هِزِّيل), with an initial i vowel and doubled z, describes someone much given to joking in the vocalization of Lisān al-ʿArab and the correction in Tāj al-ʿArūs. It must be distinguished from hazīl (هَزِيل), describing a thin person or animal.
Huzāl (هُزَال) denotes thinness or leanness and stands opposite fatness.
In the bodily field, hazala (هَزَلَ) and the passive huzila (هُزِلَ) are recorded for becoming thin; transitive hazalahu (هَزَلَهُ) means making someone or something thin. Some early accounts also record hazila yahzalu (هَزِلَ يَهْزَلُ) for joking, so vocalization and context must be considered together.
Lisān al-ʿArab: lexical vocalizations
Mahzūl (مَهْزُول) describes a thin or lean person or animal.
In some early usages, ahzala (أَهْزَلَ) describes someone whose livestock have become thin; lexical sources record further uses of this form as well.
This family has a wider range than the Qur’anic word al-hazl. Nevertheless, only the noun concerning joking and nonserious speech occurs in the Qur’an. The other forms must be presented as recognized Arabic derivatives rather than Qur’anic vocabulary.
3. Early Arabic usage and semantic development
Hazl in speech: joking and seriousness
The early dictionary Kitāb al-ʿAyn defines hazl as the opposite of jidd. Its explanation states:
فُلَانٌ يَهْزِلُ فِي كَلَامِهِ إِذَا لَمْ يَكُنْ جَادًّا
fulānun yahzilu fī kalāmihi idhā lam yakun jāddan
“Someone engages in hazl in his speech when he is not serious.”
Arabic also records the question “أَجَادٌّ أَنْتَ أَمْ هَازِلٌ؟” (a-jāddun anta am hāzilun?): “Are you serious, or are you joking?”
This usage shows hazl’s basic connection with the manner and intention of speaking.
For example, someone might tell a friend, “I have bought the whole market for you,” while both know that no such purchase occurred and the speaker is simply joking.
The utterance is not intended as a factual report of a transaction. Its nonserious character places it within the field of hazl.
If someone says the same thing to deceive another person and obtain money, however, the issue involves lying and deception as well as any supposed joke.
This example distinguishes joking, lying, and deception. They can occur together in particular situations, but each has its own meaning.
Hazl and unproductive speech
Lexical sources record qawlun hazlun (قَوْلٌ هَزْلٌ) for nonserious speech and, at times, speech that is empty or incoherent.
Al-Rāghib al-Isfahānī explains hazl as follows:
الْهَزْلُ: كُلُّ كَلَامٍ لَا تَحْصِيلَ لَهُ وَلَا رَيْعَ
al-hazlu: kullu kalāmin lā taḥṣīla lahu wa-lā rayʿa
“Hazl is any speech that has no meaningful yield or result.”
He compares this usage with bodily huzāl: just as emaciation involves diminished flesh and bodily strength, hazl speech may lack substance or a serious yield.
This explanation should nevertheless not restrict every meaning of hazl to uselessness.
Joking sometimes serves amusement, companionship, or relief from a tense situation, and can have real benefits. A joke may even convey a true and effective point.
Two uses should therefore be distinguished: hazl as joking and nonseriousness, and hazl as insubstantial or unproductive speech. They come close in some contexts without always coinciding.
Hazl in early poetry
A poem by al-Kumayt ibn Zayd, a poet of the Umayyad period, reads:
أَرَانَا عَلَى حُبِّ الْحَيَاةِ وَطُولِهَا
تَجِدُّ بِنَا فِي كُلِّ يَوْمٍ وَنَهْزِلُ
arānā ʿalā ḥubbi al-ḥayāti wa-ṭūlihā / tajiddu binā fī kulli yawmin wa-nahzilu
“Though we love life and its length, I see that life deals seriously with us each day, while we jest.”
The verse places tajiddu (تَجِدُّ) opposite nahzilu (نَهْزِلُ).
The poet contrasts the seriousness of time’s passage with human conduct. Nahzilu here means joking or failing to take the situation seriously, rather than becoming thin.
This witness is quoted in dictionaries including al-Ṣiḥāḥ and Lisān al-ʿArab. Their transmission includes tajiddu binā (تَجِدُّ بِنَا); Ibn Barrī, as quoted in Lisān al-ʿArab, prefers yujaddu binā (يُجَدُّ بِنَا) as the reading in al-Kumayt’s poem. The second reading means “we are dealt with seriously.”
Lisān al-ʿArab: al-Kumayt and the variant reading
Al-Kumayt was not a pre-Islamic poet: he lived after the Qur’an’s revelation. This verse therefore witnesses early Islamic-period usage rather than independently establishing the same expression in pre-Islamic Arabic.
Lexical sources also transmit another verse without a clear attribution:
ذُو الْجِدِّ إِنْ جَدَّ الرِّجَالُ بِهِ
وَمُهَازِلٌ إِنْ كَانَ فِي هَزْلِ
dhū al-jiddi in jadda al-rijālu bihi / wa-muhāzilun in kāna fī hazli
“He is serious when men deal seriously with him, and jesting when the situation is one of jest.”
This verse likewise illustrates the contrast between jidd and hazl. Its attribution and date are insufficiently clear to present it as conclusive evidence of pre-Qur’anic language.
These examples matter because they locate hazl within nonserious conduct and speech, distinct from the bodily meaning of thinness.
Huzāl: thinness and diminished bodily strength
The root’s second field appears in livestock keeping and descriptions of human and animal bodies.
Arabic states “الْهُزَالُ نَقِيضُ السِّمَنِ” (al-huzālu naqīḍu al-simani): “Thinness is the opposite of fatness.”
An animal that has lost flesh or become thin through hunger or illness can be described as mahzūl.
After discussing verbal hazl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn also mentions emaciation in livestock. An unattributed poetic witness uses hazīlatuhā (هَزِيلَتُهَا) for their thinness.
Here, diminution and bodily weakness are the direct meaning. The animal has become thin and departed from its previous condition.
This meaning must not be transferred to the verse in Al-Ṭāriq, which is not discussing bodies, weight, or insufficient food.
Nor does their shared root establish that either hazl or huzāl historically developed from the other. Ibn Fāris identifies weakness as a common feature, but his explanation alone does not establish the historical direction of development.
4. Qur’anic usage: “وَمَا هُوَ بِالْهَزْلِ”
The root H Z L occurs only in Al-Ṭāriq. The preceding verse bears directly on its meaning: the Qur’an first identifies the statement concerned, then denies that it is hazl.
Decisive speech and the exclusion of jest
إِنَّهُ لَقَوْلٌ فَصْلٌ
innahu la-qawlun faṣlun
“Indeed, it is a decisive, distinguishing statement.”
Al-Ṭāriq 86:13
وَمَا هُوَ بِالْهَزْلِ
wa-mā huwa bi-l-hazli
“And it is no statement made in jest.”
Al-Ṭāriq 86:14
The first verse describes qawl, speech, as faṣl. Faṣl belongs to F Ṣ L and here denotes a decisive, determinative statement that establishes clear distinctions.
The next verse denies that this same statement is hazl.
The sentences complement each other. First comes the positive quality: decisive, distinguishing speech. Then comes the clarification that it is not jest or nonserious talk.
Hazl here extends beyond merely making others laugh. It concerns speech that the speaker does not utter with serious, responsible intent, or that the listener is not to receive as a serious, determinative announcement.
By denying that the statement is hazl, the Qur’an emphasizes its seriousness and authority.
The antecedent of huwa
In wa-mā huwa bi-l-hazli (وَمَا هُوَ بِالْهَزْلِ), huwa, “it,” refers back to the statement described as qawlun faṣlun in the preceding verse.
In context, this statement is connected with the Qur’an’s revealed message.
The denial of hazl therefore characterizes that statement; it does not issue a general ruling on every kind of joking in human life.
This distinction matters. The verse does not say that everyone who jokes commits a sin. Nor does it independently rule on laughter, friendly banter, or ordinary amusements.
Its subject is the standing of the statement that the Qur’an describes as decisive and determinative.
The function of bi- in bi-l-hazli
Bi-l-hazli (بِالْهَزْلِ) consists of the preposition bi- and the definite noun al-hazl.
In the familiar grammatical analysis, the bāʾ in this construction reinforces negation.
Mā supplies the negation itself; the bāʾ in the predicate strengthens it.
Grammar of 86:14: al-Daʿʿās’s analysis
The construction therefore emphatically denies that the statement is jest, rather than merely indicating that it happens not to be a joke at present.
Persian can express this emphasis as “It is by no means a joke.” Nevertheless, the straightforward “And it is no statement made in jest” also conveys the central meaning well.
Al-hazl here is a definite noun, not a verb. The Qur’an does not say that someone is in the act of joking; it denies that the statement itself is hazl.
Its relationship with the rest of Al-Ṭāriq
The following verses read:
إِنَّهُمْ يَكِيدُونَ كَيْدًا
innahum yakīdūna kaydan
“Indeed, they are devising a scheme.”
Al-Ṭāriq 86:15
وَأَكِيدُ كَيْدًا
wa-akīdu kaydan
“And I too devise a counterplan.”
Al-Ṭāriq 86:16
فَمَهِّلِ الْكَافِرِينَ أَمْهِلْهُمْ رُوَيْدًا
fa-mahhili al-kāfirīna amhilhum ruwaydan
“So grant the disbelievers respite; allow them a little time.”
Al-Ṭāriq 86:17
These verses place the declaration of decisive speech in a setting of opposition, scheming, and warning about the outcome of human conduct.
The seriousness of the statement thus concerns more than its tone. Its content also bears on human responsibility and the real consequences of conduct.
Hazl itself, however, does not mean scheming, disbelief, or denial. Those concepts arise from the following verses and their separate roots.
Nor does this connection establish that everyone who misunderstands the Qur’an necessarily treats it as a joke or knowingly denies truth. Ignorance, disagreement over meaning, indifference, and conscious opposition are distinct conditions.
What the verse explicitly denies is the hazl character of the statement itself.
Does denying hazl require entirely literal speech?
No. A statement’s seriousness and its mode of expression are separate questions.
A person can convey a very serious truth through an example, simile, or parable. Imagery and parable do not turn speech into a joke.
The Qur’an itself gives an example concerning a mountain in Al-Ḥashr 59:21, ending the verse by stating that such examples are offered for people to reflect.
Wa-mā huwa bi-l-hazli therefore does not exclude parable, simile, or other modes of expression. It affirms seriousness, without restricting every Qur’anic expression to direct, nonfigurative reporting.
Conversely, the figurative character of some expressions does not license readings of clear Qur’anic statements that depart from their wording without evidence. Each choice between a direct and figurative reading requires linguistic and contextual support.
6. Morphological notes and translation proposals
The construction wa-mā huwa bi-l-hazli
The Qur’anic expression has four identifiable grammatical components.
Wa- is a conjunction connecting the sentence with the preceding statement.
Mā supplies negation.
Huwa is a pronoun referring back to the statement introduced in the preceding verse.
Bi-l-hazli forms the predicate in the negative construction, with bāʾ reinforcing negation.
Al-hazli itself is a definite noun in the genitive case. The preposition and genitive ending do not turn it into a different verbal noun.
Since this is the root’s sole Qur’anic occurrence, other verses must not be used to invent additional Qur’anic derivatives for it.
Translating the lexical forms
The central equivalent of hazl is “joking” or “jest.” In suitable contexts, “banter,” “nonserious speech,” or “unproductive talk” may also convey its meaning.
For hazala in the field of speech, “he joked” or “did not speak seriously” is appropriate.
Hāzil naturally means “someone joking”; muhāzalah can be “joking with one another” or “banter.”
In the bodily field, huzāl means “thinness” or “leanness.” Mahzūl can be “thin,” “lean,” or, where bodily weakness is prominent, “thin and weak.”
Translation must preserve this distinction. A mahzūl camel is not a “joking” camel, and hazl speech does not mean “thinness.”
A proposed translation of Al-Ṭāriq 86:14
وَمَا هُوَ بِالْهَزْلِ
wa-mā huwa bi-l-hazli
“And it is no statement made in jest.”
This rendering is fluent and fits the preceding verse. “Statement” clarifies the pronoun’s antecedent: huwa refers to the preceding qawl.
For a translation closer to the Arabic’s minimum word count, one could write:
“And it is no joke.”
This also expresses the negation clearly. The first rendering, however, connects more naturally with innahu la-qawlun faṣlun.
“And it is not futile” conveys part of the intention, but replaces hazl’s central meaning with a broader word and weakens its direct contrast with seriousness.
Likewise, “And it is not a lie” or “And it is not mockery” are imprecise: lying and mockery may accompany hazl in some situations, but neither is its direct equivalent.
7. Summary
The Arabic root H Z L has two familiar semantic fields: joking and nonseriousness, and bodily thinness or leanness.
Ibn Fāris proposes weakness as their common feature. Huzāl involves diminished flesh and bodily strength; verbal hazl involves the withdrawal of seriousness and firmness from speech. This semantic connection is useful, but does not mean that every joke is worthless or every person who jokes is weak.
The Qur’an contains only al-hazli, in Al-Ṭāriq 86:14. Set against qawlun faṣlun in the preceding verse, it occurs in a denial that the statement is joking or nonserious.
This denial concerns the revealed statement itself. It does not establish a general prohibition on joking, laughter, or amusement. Nor does seriousness exclude examples, similes, or parables.
The distinctions between hazl and laʿib, lahw, huzʾ, and ʿabath must also remain. These concepts may approach one another in particular situations, but each has its own semantic field.
The brief Qur’anic meaning of H Z L is joking and nonserious speech. By denying this quality, the verse in Al-Ṭāriq affirms that the statement concerned is decisive and serious, and must not be treated as jest indifferent to truth and its consequences.