The Qur’anic Root J F W
Distance, Separation, and Jafāʾ: From Physical Detachment to Coldness in Human Relationships
Qur’anic and lexical forms
تَتَجَافَىٰ
(tatajāfā)
Form VI imperfect; Qur’anic form
جَفَا / يَجْفُو
(jafā / yajfū)
Form I; not Qur’anic
جَفْو
(jafw)
Verbal noun; not Qur’anic
جَفَاء
(jafāʾ)
Verbal noun; not Qur’anic
جَفْوَة
(jafwah)
Noun related to jafāʾ; not Qur’anic
جَافَى
(jāfā)
Form III; not Qur’anic
تَجَافَى
(tajāfā)
Form VI; its imperfect occurs in the Qur’an
أَجْفَى
(ajfā)
Form IV; not Qur’anic
اسْتَجْفَى
(istajfā)
Form X; not Qur’anic
جَافٍ / مَجْفُوّ
(jāfin / majfuww)
Active and passive participles; not Qur’anic
جُفَايَة
(jufāyah)
Empty ship; not Qur’anic
1. Introducing the root
The Arabic triliteral root J F W concerns drawing away, keeping apart, and failing to remain in contact with a place or another object. Its two main fields are physical separation, such as a side leaving a bed or a saddle rising from an animal’s back, and relational distance, such as broken ties, unkindness, and harsh treatment.
Jafā can describe something moving away from where it rested. Applied to people, it can concern turning away, abandoning affection, or severing contact.
Persian jafā chiefly suggests unkindness, hardheartedness, or ungentle behavior. The Arabic root is broader: physical separation need not involve unkindness or wrongdoing.
A side drawing away from a bed describes a physical condition; someone acting with jafāʾ toward a friend concerns conduct and relationship. Brief root meaning: Drawing away and keeping apart; in human relationships, turning away and unkindness.
The Qur’an uses this root only once, as tatajāfā in Al-Sajdah 32:16:
Quranic Arabic Corpus: one J F W occurrence
“Tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani al-maḍājiʿ.”
The expression concerns people whose sides draw away from their beds as they call upon their Lord in fear and hope.
The Qur’anic occurrence thus belongs to physical separation, rather than unkindness or harsh behavior.
The relational branch remains necessary for understanding the whole family: distance can describe objects and bodily parts as well as human relationships.
2. The semantic core in early Arabic
Drawing away and failing to remain in contact
Ibn Fāris writes in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:
الْجِيمُ وَالْفَاءُ وَالْحَرْفُ الْمُعْتَلُّ يَدُلُّ عَلَى أَصْلٍ وَاحِدٍ: نُبُوُّ الشَّيْءِ عَنِ الشَّيْءِ.
al-jīmu wa-al-fāʾu wa-al-ḥarfu al-muʿtallu yadullu ʿalā aṣlin wāḥidin nubuwwu al-shayʾi ʿani al-shayʾ
Translation: “Jīm, fāʾ, and the weak letter indicate one basic meaning: something standing apart from something else.”
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs: nubuww and distance
Nubuww is significant: it can describe something not resting on, adhering to, or remaining in contact with another thing.
For example, jafā can describe a horse’s saddle failing to sit properly on its back, leaving a gap.
Jafā janbuhu ʿani al-firāshi likewise describes a person’s side rising from the bed on which it rested.
In both cases, things that ordinarily could touch are now separated.
This provides a clear physical image for the root.
J F W should nevertheless neither be restricted to nor generalized as every kind of distance. Other Arabic words describe distance, separation, and movement, each with its own range.
Saddle and animal’s back
Lisān al-ʿArab records:
جَفَا السَّرْجُ عَنْ ظَهْرِ الْفَرَسِ.
jafā al-sarju ʿan ẓahri al-faras
That is: “The saddle drew away from the horse’s back.”
A saddle rests on an animal’s back; properly positioned, it makes contact and sits securely.
Rising from the back or failing to sit properly changes that contact and placement.
Jafā here concerns that separation.
If a person lifts the saddle away, ajfā can instead express causing its separation or removal.
The family thus expresses both something drawing away and another agent moving it away.
Separation need not mean violent expulsion. Intensity depends on the particular verb, object, and context.
Side and bed
Arabic records:
جَفَا جَنْبُهُ عَنِ الْفِرَاشِ وَتَجَافَى.
jafā janbuhu ʿani al-firāshi wa-tajāfā
That is: “His side drew away from the bed and rose from it.”
This directly relates to the Qur’anic tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani al-maḍājiʿ.
A reclining person’s side touches the bed. Rising, sitting up, or leaving that posture separates it from the resting place.
Tajāfā emphasizes detachment and distance.
The verb alone does not explain why someone rose: work, travel, worship, attending to another person, or another reason may be involved.
The reason must come from the sentence or context.
Al-Sajdah relates it to invoking the Lord and the people’s believing conduct.
Does separation always involve movement?
Physical distance can result from movement, such as lifting the body from a bed or a saddle from an animal’s back.
The word can also describe a state of being apart.
Jafā may describe something failing to rest in its place without narrating every stage of movement.
Distinguish distance itself, creating distance, and the resulting separation.
Qur’anic tatajāfā is verbal and describes sides drawing away from beds. It does not itself specify standing, sitting, or how long they remain away.
3. Jafāʾ in human relationships
From physical distance to relational distance
Jafā fulānan can describe turning away from someone, cooling a relationship, or abandoning a former bond or kindness.
The distance need not be physical.
Two people may live in one home and remain spatially close while their conduct is cold and marked by jafāʾ.
Others may live in distant cities while maintaining affection, respect, and care.
Spatial distance and relational jafāʾ are consequently different.
This branch concerns conduct and relationship quality, rather than a measured gap between people.
Jafāʾ contrasted with connection and kindness
Lexical sources state:
الْجَفَاءُ خِلَافُ الْبِرِّ.
al-jafāʾu khilāfu al-birr
That is: “Jafāʾ is contrary to kindness and good treatment.”
Another explanation contrasts it with ṣilah.
In human relationships, ṣilah concerns maintaining ties, care, and contact. Jafāʾ can involve abandoning that connection or turning away.
Someone may have a responsibility toward a relative or friend yet withhold care and allow the relationship to grow cold.
In that context, the conduct can be called jafāʾ.
Leaving a relationship is not wrong in every circumstance: continuing it may be harmful, or distance may be necessary to protect rights and security.
Lexical meaning and moral assessment therefore require separate examination.
A negative relational application does not make every human act of distancing reprehensible.
Harsh conduct
Human jafāʾ can concern rough character, harsh behavior, and a lack of gentleness in association.
Lisān records jāfī al-khilqati and jāfī al-khuluqi.
The first can describe coarse bodily appearance or build; the second concerns temperament and conduct.
They should not be identified.
Someone with a large, powerful appearance may behave gently, while someone delicate-looking may treat others harshly.
When jāfī qualifies a person, establish whether appearance or conduct and relationships are intended.
Jafwah and jafāʾ
Lexical sources record both jafwah and jafāʾ.
Al-Azharī explains that jafwah can denote a single occurrence, whereas jafāʾ is a general verbal noun of the conduct.
Al-Layth also distinguishes them, treating jafwah in some uses as more persistent or binding in abandoning ties.
Al-Layth and Al-Azharī in Lisān: jafwah and jafāʾ
These explanations should not become an absolute rule that every jafwah occurs once or jafāʾ always means permanent behavior.
Arabic verbal nouns and related nouns may overlap.
The relevant field is coldness, distance, and harshness in relationships.
Something weighing on a person
Lisān also records jafā al-shayʾu ʿalayhi: something felt heavy or difficult for someone.
The preposition ʿalā matters in this construction.
The subject is no longer an object’s physical separation, but something burdensome or difficult for a person.
Ibn Sīdah explains it through thaqula ʿalayhi.
Ibn Sīdah: the construction with ʿalā
This one application does not establish difficulty and weight as the entire family’s original meaning.
Heaviness is recorded in a particular verbal construction and should be examined there.
4. Important forms and derivatives
Jafā: Drew away or acted unkindly
Jafā is Form I, with imperfect yajfū.
It can be intransitive, describing separation, such as a saddle leaving a horse’s back.
Transitively, it can describe someone turning away from or treating another person unkindly.
Its verbal nouns include jafw and jafāʾ.
This distinction makes objects and prepositions essential to interpretation.
Jāfā: Distanced or kept apart
Jāfā belongs to Form III.
Physically, it can express keeping something away from another object.
Jāfā janbahu ʿani al-firāshi means keeping one’s side away from the bed.
With people, jāfā fulānan can describe avoiding someone, turning away, or treating them unkindly.
Form III alone does not establish reciprocal unkindness.
One person may withdraw without the other doing the same.
Tajāfā: Drew away or stood apart
Tajāfā belongs to Form VI.
It is familiar for drawing away and remaining apart from something.
Tajāfā janbuhu ʿani al-firāshi describes a side drawing away from a bed.
The side itself is the grammatical subject.
The Qur’an uses tajāfā only as tatajāfā.
This is third-person feminine singular imperfect, with junūbuhum as its subject.
Feminine singular agreement with junūb fits the familiar Arabic treatment of nonhuman plurals.
Ajfā: Moved away
Ajfā belongs to Form IV.
Applied to objects, it can express removing or lifting something from its position.
Ajfaytu al-sarja describes lifting a saddle from a horse’s back.
Ajfā al-māshiyata is also recorded for driving livestock hard and exhaustingly, without sufficient opportunity to feed.
Driving and harsh treatment coincide in that application.
Form IV itself need not mean causing harm; harm or fatigue comes from the particular use and the animals’ circumstances.
Ijtafā: Removed or displaced
Ijtafā belongs to Form VIII. Sources such as Al-Rāʾid record its removal meaning under J F Y. Its occurrence alone is therefore insufficient to establish it as certainly derived from J F W.
Lisān likewise records jafaytu al-baqla wa-ijtafaytuhu, with yāʾ, for uprooting vegetation, and relates it to hamzated jafaʾa and ijtafaʾa.
The final weak consonant makes these neighboring forms relevant.
J F W and J F Y forms nevertheless require examination of vocalization and historical evidence before identification.
Istajfā: Considered jāfī
Istajfā belongs to Form X.
One familiar application means judging someone or something jāfī.
For example, the construction can describe finding a bed uncomfortable or rough.
The person assesses a characteristic of something.
The object determines the precise meaning: harsh human conduct or an unsuitable bed may be intended.
Jāfin and majfuww
Jāfin is an active participle describing someone or something drawing away or behaving with jafāʾ.
Majfuww is a passive participle for someone treated unkindly or turned away from.
Poetic witnesses also contain majfiyy.
Lexicographers such as Ibn al-Sikkīt and Al-Farrāʾ disputed that form and explained it through wāw/yāʾ alternation in morphology.
A weak-root word’s surface form is therefore not always sufficient to establish its root.
Jufāyah: An empty ship
A less familiar application is jufāyah, an empty ship.
Abū ʿAmr records it and distinguishes it from a laden vessel.
Tāj al-ʿArūs: jufāyah with initial ḍammah
The application concerns whether a ship carries cargo.
A resemblance between emptiness and contents leaving a container is conceivable, but does not establish the historical reason for the name.
The word is not Qur’anic; its meaning should not be transferred to tatajāfā.
5. Poetry and early Arabic usage
Leaving the bed in ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah’s poetry
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah says:
يَبِيتُ يُجَافِي جَنْبَهُ عَنْ فِرَاشِهِ
إِذَا اسْتَثْقَلَتْ بِالْمُشْرِكِينَ الْمَضَاجِعُ
yabītu yujāfī janbahu ʿan firāshihi / idhā istathqalat bi-al-mushrikīna al-maḍājiʿu
Translation: “He spends the night keeping his side away from his bed, when beds are heavy with sleeping polytheists.” The image concerns their heavy sleep, rather than the beds becoming a burden upon them.
ʿUmdat al-Qārī: Ibn Rawāḥah’s witness
The verse describes Muḥammad.
Yujāfī janbahu ʿan firāshihi describes keeping his side away from his bed.
Opposite him, beds heavy with their occupants portray others’ deep sleep and continued rest.
One person has drawn away while others remain in bed.
Lexically, this closely resembles Qur’anic tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani al-maḍājiʿ.
Ibn Rawāḥah was an Islamic-era poet and the poem concerns Muḥammad; it should not be introduced as pre-Islamic poetry.
Its importance is as a clear usage close to revelation’s period.
Physical separation in Al-ʿAjjāj’s poetry
Al-ʿAjjāj, an Umayyad poet, describes a wild bull:
وَشَجَرَ الْهُدَّابَ عَنْهُ فَجَفَا
wa-shajara al-huddāba ʿanhu fa-jafā
Translation: “He raised the hanging branches away from himself; then they drew apart from him.”
The explanation describes the animal lifting hanging arṭā shrub branches with its horn, causing them to stand apart.
Lisān: accusative al-huddāba and the animal raising branches
Fa-jafā concerns the branches’ separation.
The witness matters for the verb’s intransitive use: the displaced branches no longer remain in their previous contact.
No human unkindness or harsh temperament is involved.
Al-ʿAjjāj postdates Islam, so the witness should not be treated as pre-Islamic.
Human jafāʾ in Abū al-Najm al-ʿIjlī’s poetry
Abū al-Najm al-ʿIjlī, an Umayyad rajaz poet, describes a shepherd:
صُلْبُ الْعَصَا جَافٍ عَنِ التَّغَزُّلِ
كَالصَّقْرِ يَجْفُو عَنْ طِرَادِ الدُّخَّلِ
ṣulbu al-ʿaṣā jāfin ʿani al-taghazzuli / ka-al-ṣaqri yajfū ʿan ṭirādi al-dukhkhali
Translation: “Hard of staff and aloof from courtship, like a falcon turning away from pursuing a small bird.”
Maqāyīs: Abū al-Najm and distance from courtship
Jāfin ʿani al-taghazzuli concerns distance from romantic behavior and a lack of social softness.
Ṣulbu al-ʿaṣā also contributes to the shepherd’s characterization.
The comparison portrays someone showing little gentleness in behavior and association.
It relates to the human branch of jafāʾ.
Jāfin should nevertheless not always be translated as hardhearted. Here distance from courtship and rough conduct emerge from the combined words and image.
This witness too belongs to the Umayyad period, rather than pre-Islamic poetry.
Separation in a witness attributed to Maʿdīkarib
Al-ʿAyn and Lisān al-ʿArab quote:
إِنَّ جَنْبِي عَنِ الْفِرَاشِ لَنَابٍ
كَتَجَافِي الْأَسَرِّ فَوْقَ الظِّرَابِ
inna janbī ʿani al-firāshi la-nābin / ka-tajāfī al-asarri fawqa al-ẓirābi
The first half clearly means: “My side draws away from the bed and will not rest upon it.”
In the second half, al-asarr denotes a camel with pain or a sore beneath its chest, and al-ẓirāb denotes small heights or stony ground. The image is “like the sore camel holding itself apart over rocky rises”: when kneeling, it avoids painful contact with uneven ground. The comparison thus involves more than an unspecified landscape feature.
Lisān, S R R: sore camel and raised ground
The use of tajāfī matters because it presents the same side-and-bed separation image found in Al-Sajdah.
The quotation under jafā names no poet, but Lisān under S R R attributes it to Maʿdīkarib, known as Ghalfāʾ, mourning his brother Shuraḥbīl. Al-Aghānī also transmits that attribution in accounts of Kindah’s ruling family and the battle of Kulāb.
Al-Aghānī: attribution to Maʿdīkarib Ghalfāʾ
The early attribution connects the verse with pre-Islamic history and should be reported. Its transmission in later books nevertheless does not independently fix the exact date or every historical detail.
Lisān, S R R: attribution and lament for Shuraḥbīl
Assessing the historical witnesses
The poetry clarifies three applications: sides leaving beds, branches moving physically apart, and distance in human association.
Each involves separation or failure to remain in a previous position, but the object and kind of distance differ.
Their histories differ: Ibn Rawāḥah belongs to early Islam, while Al-ʿAjjāj and Abū al-Najm are later. Early sources attribute Inna janbī to Maʿdīkarib Ghalfāʾ and pre-Islamic events. It is therefore inaccurate to describe all available witnesses as Islamic or anonymous; each attribution and date requires individual assessment.
Unsupported assignment of verses to pre-Islamic poets should not replace careful evidence.
The Qur’anic occurrence itself nevertheless shows that leaving a bed was an intelligible Arabic image at revelation.
6. The Qur’anic occurrence: Al-Sajdah 32:16
تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمْ عَنِ الْمَضَاجِعِ يَدْعُونَ رَبَّهُمْ خَوْفًا وَطَمَعًا وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ
tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani al-maḍājiʿi yadʿūna rabbahum khawfan wa-ṭamaʿan wa-mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English: “Their sides draw away from their beds; they call upon their Lord in fear and hope, and spend from what We have provided them.”
This is the Qur’an’s sole occurrence of J F W.
The preceding Al-Sajdah 32:15 describes people who do not act arrogantly toward divine signs, but prostrate and glorify their Lord when reminded.
Verse 16 adds their sides drawing away from beds, invoking their Lord in fear and hope, and spending their provision.
Al-Sajdah 32:17 describes a reward kept hidden for them.
Tatajāfā thus occurs in a description of believers whose conduct involves remembrance, humility, invocation, and giving.
The formation of tatajāfā
Tatajāfā is a Form VI imperfect verb.
Al-Ṭabarī: explicit Form VI analysis
Its base is tajāfā and its root J F W.
The verb is feminine singular because its subject is junūbuhum, their sides.
Arabic nonhuman plurals can take feminine singular verbs.
Singular agreement does not mean only one person’s side leaves the bed. Hum indicates a group.
The two initial tāʾs do not make tatajāfā two verbs or necessarily a reciprocal action.
It is a Form VI imperfect; here it means drawing away and separation.
Junūbuhum: Why sides?
Junūb is the plural of janb, a side.
A person may rest on this bodily part when reclining.
Junūb beside al-maḍājiʿ consequently creates a natural physical image.
A person rests on a bed, but on rising their sides leave that place.
The image is particularly apt for someone rising from sleep or rest.
It does not restrict the verse to sleeping on a right or left side, or prescribe a particular bodily position.
Junūbuhum concerns the bed and leaving it, rather than a medical or ritual rule about sleeping posture.
The preposition ʿan
In ʿani al-maḍājiʿ, ʿan expresses departure or separation from a place.
Al-maḍājiʿ is the plural of maḍjaʿ, a place for reclining or resting.
The spatial relationship is clear: sides draw away from beds.
Ignoring ʿan would lose the difference between resting on and moving away from a bed.
Nor should tatajāfā here be rendered as hating sleep or finding the bed objectionable.
The verse describes separation, rather than declaring sleep or beds bad.
Does the verse concern nighttime?
Beds and resting places ordinarily relate to sleep, and night is a familiar sleeping time for many people.
Early commentators consequently relate this verse to rising for nighttime worship.
That reading fits its image.
Tatajāfā nevertheless does not mean night, nor does al-maḍājiʿ name a particular hour.
The verse specifies neither a time, duration, nor number of occasions of rising.
It portrays leaving beds to invoke the Lord, with nighttime worship a clear application, but the verb alone cannot establish a precise worship time or number of prayer units.
Does tatajāfā mean performing prayer?
The verb itself does not mean performing prayer.
It expresses sides drawing away from a bed.
Yadʿūna rabbahum follows: they call upon their Lord.
The surrounding verses connect this conduct with worship, remembrance, and humility.
Rising for salat and worship can therefore be an application.
Translation should nevertheless not substitute “they perform the night prayer” directly for tatajāfā.
That replaces the word’s direct meaning with a specific action and time.
Early commentaries also differ over the timing: some discuss night worship, others worship between sunset and the late-evening prayer, and others remembrance upon waking at night.
Lisān: different interpretations of worship time
The basic leaving-the-bed image is clear, while identifying the precise form of worship requires other evidence.
For a wider examination of salat and its relation to invocation, prostration, and worship in action, see Forqan’s independent study “Salat in the Qur’an.”
Yadʿūna rabbahum khawfan wa-ṭamaʿan
After the sides’ departure from beds comes:
“Yadʿūna rabbahum khawfan wa-ṭamaʿan.”
This connects leaving the bed with invoking the Lord.
Khawfan concerns fear; ṭamaʿan concerns hope and expectation.
The two states appear together.
The verse presents neither fear alone nor hope alone: both accompany their invocation.
Those meanings come from KH W F and Ṭ M ʿ, rather than J F W itself.
Tatajāfā depicts physical rising; the continuation clarifies its direction and worshipful motivation.
Wa-mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn
The verse continues with spending.
Its description is consequently not restricted to leaving beds and invoking the Lord.
They also spend from what they have been provided.
Worship and conduct involving provision and giving appear together.
J F W does not thereby lexically mean spending, generosity, or financial sacrifice.
Spending comes from yunfiqūn.
Its connection with leaving the bed is contextual: several characteristics are combined in describing one group.
Is leaving a bed always virtuous?
Lexically, leaving a bed is a physical event.
Someone may rise for a beneficial or harmful purpose; rising alone does not determine moral value.
In Al-Sajdah 32:16, the conduct’s value relates to faith, invoking the Lord, and giving.
The verse does not establish that sleeping less necessarily brings a higher standing before The God.
Sleep and rest are natural needs; other verses present sleep and repose as part of life’s ordering, such as Al-Nabaʾ 78:9 and Al-Rūm 30:23.
Nor does the verse establish that an ill, exhausted, or otherwise rest-needing person is sinful or deprived of that virtue simply for sleeping.
It describes believers and their conduct, without prescribing a general sleep duration or deprivation of bodily rest.
The relation to prostration and humility
Al-Sajdah 32:15 describes people prostrating when reminded of divine signs without arrogance.
Verse 16 continues with their sides leaving beds, invoking their Lord, and giving.
Bodily and practical conduct thus appear beside inward orientation.
Prostration, rising, invocation, and giving can be different responses to divine remembrance.
None should become another’s lexical meaning.
Tatajāfā still means drawing away from the bed; its worshipful value comes from its place within the verses.
8. Questions of understanding and translation
Is jafāʾ always reprehensible?
Relational jafāʾ often has a negative tone, especially for unkindness, broken ties, or harsh association.
The physical root does not carry that fixed judgment.
Rising from bed may serve a good purpose, just as an object moving from its position may be entirely ordinary.
The relational moral meaning should not be transferred to every derivative.
Does tajāfī mean permanent abandonment?
No.
Tajāfā by itself specifies no duration of separation.
Someone may rise briefly and return to bed.
They may also remain away from the resting place for a long time.
Al-Sajdah 32:16 specifies no duration.
A rendering asserting permanent abandonment of sleep or absolute sleeplessness exceeds the verb’s direct meaning.
Does tajāfī mean hating the bed?
No.
In Arabic, drawing away need not imply hatred.
Someone may like something yet temporarily leave it for a more important responsibility.
The verse links leaving the bed to invoking the Lord.
That action does not establish sleep or rest as inherently bad.
Is tatajāfā necessarily a particular ritual movement?
No.
The verb itself concerns separation.
A ritual context may use it for a particular bodily movement, but Al-Sajdah 32:16 applies it to sides leaving beds.
The phrase does not independently prescribe positions of hands, feet, sides, or details of prostration.
Does relational jafāʾ enter this verse?
The subject is junūbuhum, and the place left is al-maḍājiʿ.
The direct physical sense is therefore clear.
“Their sides act unkindly toward beds” might create a literary Persian image, but is neither natural nor precise.
Likewise, importing unkindness toward beds adds a human relational sense without warrant.
“Their sides draw away from beds” avoids this problem.
9. Translation proposals for Forqan
No single equivalent fits every application of J F W.
Physical equivalents include drawing away, keeping apart, rising from a place, and moving something away.
Jafā al-sarju ʿan ẓahri al-farasi can be rendered “the saddle drew away from the horse’s back.”
Jāfā janbahu ʿani al-firāshi is appropriately “he kept his side away from the bed.”
Relational jafā fulānan may mean treated him unkindly, turned away from him, acted coldly toward him, or weakened his connection with him, according to context.
Jāfī al-khuluqi means harsh-tempered or ill-mannered.
Majfuww may be rendered someone treated unkindly or someone others have turned away from.
For the sole Qur’anic tatajāfā, however, the primary equivalent is draws away or separates.
The expression:
تَتَجَافَىٰ جُنُوبُهُمْ عَنِ الْمَضَاجِعِ
tatajāfā junūbuhum ʿani al-maḍājiʿ
is rendered in Forqan’s existing Persian version as:
“Their sides draw away from their beds.”
This preserves the direct sense of verb, subject, and preposition.
“They rise from their beds” is also natural, but makes the sides’ separation image less explicit than the existing rendering.
Conversely, “they perform the night prayer,” “they stay awake all night,” or “they hate sleep” are not direct equivalents of tatajāfā.
If supported by context or other evidence, such descriptions belong in analysis rather than replacing the lexical meaning.
10. Conclusion
Arabic J F W concerns drawing away, distance, and failure to remain in contact with a position or another thing.
Ibn Fāris identifies nubuwwu al-shayʾi ʿani al-shayʾi as its core: something standing apart from something else.
Physical applications concern saddles and animal backs, sides and beds, and other things previously in contact or at rest together.
The family also expresses turning away, broken ties, unkindness, and harshness in relationships.
Those relational uses are real but are not invariant meanings of every derivative.
The poetry illustrates both fields: Ibn Rawāḥah depicts a side leaving a bed; Al-ʿAjjāj depicts branches leaving an animal; Abū al-Najm depicts relational and social distance.
Ibn Rawāḥah, Al-ʿAjjāj, and Abū al-Najm belong to early Islamic and Umayyad times. The verse attributed to Maʿdīkarib Ghalfāʾ instead connects with pre-Islamic events in the sources. Preserve those differences rather than transferring witnesses between periods without evidence.
The Qur’an uses the root only once, as tatajāfā in Al-Sajdah 32:16.
Believers’ sides draw away from beds; the continuation describes invoking their Lord in fear and hope and spending from their provision.
Leaving the bed is the verb’s lexical meaning; the conduct’s worshipful value comes from context.
Tatajāfā alone establishes no precise worship time, duration of wakefulness, or particular prayer form. Nor does it mean hatred of sleep, permanent abandonment of rest, or moral unkindness.
A semantic relationship with J F A also merits examination. Lexicographers propose historical links between wāw and hamzated forms; Qur’anic tatajāfā concerns sides drawing away, while jufāʾan in Al-Raʿd 13:17 concerns discarded foam.
Consequently, the semantic core of J F W is drawing apart and failing to remain attached to a previous position or relationship.
Physical distance may be neutral; relational distance can become unkindness and broken ties; Al-Sajdah 32:16 presents it as part of believers’ worshipful conduct.
Forqan’s existing Persian “their sides draw away from their beds” is precise and appropriate. It preserves the physical image and lets the continuation establish its connection with invocation, fear, hope, and giving.