The Qur’anic Root J M D
Congealing and stillness: from solidifying and ceasing to flow to the mountains’ apparent immobility in the Qur’an
Qur’anic and lexical forms
جَامِدَةً
(jāmidatan)
Sole Qur’anic form; feminine singular active participle
جَمَدَ / يَجْمُدُ
(jamada / yajmudu)
Form I verb; not Qur’anic
جَامِد
(jāmid)
Active participle; its feminine occurs in the Qur’an
جُمُود
(jumūd)
Verbal noun; not Qur’anic
جَمْد
(jamd)
With sukūn on mīm; congealing or congealed matter; not Qur’anic
جَمَد
(jamad)
With fatḥah on mīm; nominal usages; not Qur’anic
جُمُد / أَجْمَاد
(jumud / ajmād)
Hard ground and plural; not Qur’anic
جَمَاد
(jamād)
Rainless land or year; not Qur’anic
جُمَادَى
(jumādā)
Name of two months; not Qur’anic
جَمَّدَ
(jammada)
Form II; not Qur’anic
تَجَمَّدَ
(tajammada)
Form V; not Qur’anic
جَامِدُ الْعَيْنِ
(jāmidu al-ʿayni)
Shedding few tears; not Qur’anic
جَمَادُ الْكَفِّ
(jamādu al-kaffi)
Miserly; not Qur’anic
مُجْمِد
(mujmid)
Miser or entrusted custodian according to context; not Qur’anic
نَاقَةٌ جَمَاد
(nāqatun jamād)
Milkless camel or one with little milk; not Qur’anic
جَمَادِ
(jamādi)
Form in Al-Mutalammis’s witness; not Qur’anic
1. Introducing the root
The three-letter Arabic root J M D concerns congealing, ceasing to flow, drying, and becoming hard or motionless. Its family includes جَمَدَ (jamada), “solidified”; جُمُود (jumūd), congealing or cessation of flow; and جَامِد (jāmid), something congealed, hard, or stationary.
The root’s primary, familiar usage concerns a liquid such as water losing its fluid state and no longer flowing. Arabic usages nevertheless extend beyond this condition.
جَمَاد (jamād) can describe land or a year without rain. جَامِدُ الْعَيْنِ (jāmidu al-ʿayni) describes someone whose eyes shed no tears. جَمَادُ الْكَفِّ (jamādu al-kaffi) describes a miser whose hand does not open in giving. Some early usages also call hard, elevated ground or a rocky mound جُمُد (jumud).
These differ from freezing water. Rainless land is not necessarily frozen; a tearless eye is not necessarily cold or frozen; a miser’s hand is not frozen. An aspect of the root’s field extends to another subject: something expected to flow, emerge, or move remains in its condition.
The Qur’an uses J M D only once, as جَامِدَةً (jāmidatan) in Al-Naml 27:88:
Quranic Arabic Corpus: the sole jāmidah in Al-Naml 27:88
وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ
wa-tarā al-jibāla taḥsabuhā jāmidatan wa-hiya tamurru marra al-saḥābi
Here, a person sees the mountains and considers them jāmidah, while they pass like clouds.
Jāmidah stands opposite tamurru, “passes.” The intended meaning therefore concerns considering the mountains stationary and motionless more particularly than their material hardness.
A mountain can consist of hard rock and still move. Hardness and movement are compatible, whereas being stationary and passing or changing position contrast within the same relationship and condition.
This contrast clarifies jāmidatan in the verse.
The surrounding context describes the trumpet being blown, beings’ terror, human gathering, and accountability. Determining whether the mountains’ movement concerns resurrection or natural movement in the present world therefore requires examining the whole context.
The root’s lexical meaning alone cannot resolve that interpretive difference.
This study must distinguish three matters: a substance solidifying, a body being stationary and motionless, and a person considering something stationary when it actually moves. Brief root meaning: Solidifying and ceasing to flow; in the Qur’anic usage, being stationary and motionless.
2. The semantic core in early Arabic
A liquid solidifying
Ibn Fāris writes in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:
الْجِيمُ وَالْمِيمُ وَالدَّالُ أَصْلٌ وَاحِدٌ، وَهُوَ جُمُودُ الشَّيْءِ الْمَائِعِ مِنْ بَرْدٍ أَوْ غَيْرِهِ.
al-jīmu wa-al-mīmu wa-al-dālu aṣlun wāḥidun wa-huwa jumūdu al-shayʾi al-māʾiʿi min bardin aw ghayrihi
Translation: “Jīm, mīm, and dāl have one underlying principle: a fluid substance congealing through cold or something else.”
Ibn Fāris: fluid congealing through cold or another cause
Several points matter in this definition.
First, the initial subject is māʾiʿ: a substance capable of fluidity and flow.
Second, jumūd is a change in that substance’s condition.
Third, Ibn Fāris does not restrict the cause to cold, adding “or something else.”
His analysis thus concerns a substance leaving its flowing state, whether through cold or another cause.
Lisān al-ʿArab quotes Ibn Sīdah:
جَمَدَ الْمَاءُ وَالدَّمُ وَغَيْرُهُمَا مِنَ السَّيَّالَاتِ يَجْمُدُ جُمُودًا وَجَمْدًا، أَيْ قَامَ.
jamada al-māʾu wa-al-damu wa-ghayruhumā mina al-sayyālāti yajmudu jumūdan wa-jamdan ay qāma
Translation: “Water, blood, and other liquids jamada: they ceased flowing.”
Qāma in this explanation concerns the substance settling and ceasing to flow.
Ordinary flowing water can freeze when cooled. Blood can likewise leave its freely flowing state and clot.
Scientifically, these processes have different mechanisms.
Water freezing through cold and blood coagulating are distinct. Using one root for both does not mean early lexicographers proposed a single physical and biological mechanism.
Language recognizes a similar resulting condition: the substance no longer flows as before.
Lisān al-ʿArab: water, blood, and interrupted flow
Jamd in contrast with dhawb
Al-Jawharī writes in Al-Ṣiḥāḥ:
وَالْجَمْدُ بِالتَّسْكِينِ: مَا جَمَدَ مِنَ الْمَاءِ، وَهُوَ نَقِيضُ الذَّوْبِ.
wa-al-jamdu bi-al-taskīni mā jamada mina al-māʾi wa-huwa naqīḍu al-dhawbi
Translation: “Jamd, with an unvoweled mīm, is water that has frozen, and contrasts with thawing.”
This identifies a clear contrast between two conditions.
On one side is a congealed substance; on the other, a melted or flowing substance.
This contrast matters for water and similar materials.
In Al-Naml 27:88, however, the mountains are not compared with frozen water: jāmidatan contrasts with their movement.
Jamd and thawing must therefore not be treated without context as the only possible meaning of the Qur’anic adjective jāmid.
Al-Ṣiḥāḥ: jamd in contrast with thawing
Does jumūd always mean freezing?
No.
Freezing is a clear instance of jumūd, but does not encompass every usage.
Arabic jāmid can concern hard material, something that has stopped moving, a tearless eye, or another condition lacking expected flow or movement.
The primary sense concerning congealing must therefore remain distinct from semantic extensions.
Jāmid itself also does not specify the cause of the condition in every usage.
Calling something jāmid does not by itself establish whether cold, drying, elapsed time, or another cause produced it.
Context or independent evidence must identify the cause.
3. Important forms and derivatives
Jamada: solidifying or stopping
Jamada is a Form I verb; its imperfect is يَجْمُدُ (yajmudu).
Its recognized verbal nouns are jumūd and جَمْد (jamd).
For water, it concerns solidifying or freezing.
Other usages may concern cessation of flow or absence of something expected.
Jamada al-māʾu, concerning water, and jamadati al-ʿaynu, concerning an eye, are distinct usages.
The first concerns a fluid substance.
The second concerns tears being absent or not flowing.
One fixed equivalent therefore cannot serve every sentence.
Jāmid and jāmidah
Jāmid is the active participle of jamada.
It can describe something congealed, hard, stationary, or no longer flowing.
Jāmidah is its feminine form.
The Qur’an uses only this feminine singular form: jibāl is a nonhuman plural, which can take a feminine singular description.
Al-Naml 27:88 uses accusative jāmidatan in taḥsabuhā jāmidatan.
Grammatically, jāmidatan is taḥsabu’s second object: ḥasiba here concerns considering or supposing something to have a particular condition.
The sentence therefore means “you consider them motionless.”
This differs from saying “the mountains are stationary.”
The verse presents being stationary as the observer’s impression, then states the mountains’ actual movement.
Jumūd: congealing and immobility
Jumūd is a verbal noun.
In physical usage, it concerns congealing or ceasing to flow.
Broader usages can concern stopping and remaining in one condition.
Modern Persian and Arabic also recognize the expression “intellectual rigidity.”
It describes an individual or group lacking flexibility and willingness to reconsider ideas.
That terminology must not be transferred without justification to every early Arabic text.
“Intellectual rigidity” also does not occur in the Qur’an.
Al-Naml 27:88 concerns mountains and their movement, rather than a person’s inability to change ideas.
Jamd and jamad
The vowel on mīm matters in lexicons.
Jamd, with sukūn on mīm, describes congealed material and sometimes functions as a verbal noun.
Some sources use جَمَد (jamad), with fatḥah on mīm, for frozen water or a collection of solid things.
Related forms also denote hard, elevated land.
Similar unvoweled spelling must therefore not make every form identical in meaning.
Vocalization and context are necessary for each usage.
Jumud: hard, elevated land
Early Arabic jumud denotes a hard, raised part of the terrain.
Some accounts concern a relatively low, rocky, rounded hill.
Its recorded plurals include أَجْمَاد (ajmād) and جِمَاد (jimād).
This concerns the ground’s hardness and solidity.
Jumud for elevated ground is nevertheless not jabal itself; all the features of a large mountain should not be attributed to it.
It also differs from Qur’anic jāmidatan.
Jumud in poetry may name a landform, whereas jāmidatan in Al-Naml 27:88 describes the mountains.
Jamād: rainless land or a dry year
Arabic sources apply jamād to land that has received no rain.
Sanatun jamād also describes a year with little rain or lacking rain and greenery.
The subject here is not water freezing through cold.
Land in a warm climate may be dry and bare because rain has not fallen.
Freezing and lack of rainfall must therefore remain distinct.
Ibn Fāris compares this usage with rain congealing: rain expected to flow and descend has seemingly stopped.
This is a semantic explanation, rather than a claim that rain has actually frozen in the sky.
Jumādā: two months’ names
Jumādā al-Ūlā and Jumādā al-Ākhirah name two months of the Arabic lunar calendar.
Lexicographers connect the names with water freezing during cold weather.
Some accounts say these names became established when the months coincided with winter.
Lunar months nevertheless shift through solar years.
Jumādā al-Ūlā and Jumādā al-Ākhirah therefore are not necessarily cold, freezing months in every period and region.
These calendar names also do not occur in the Qur’an.
Their lexical history matters, but must not be transferred to jāmidatan in Al-Naml 27:88.
Jammada and tajammada
Arabic also recognizes Forms II and V within this family.
Transitive جَمَّدَ (jammada) can mean solidifying something or causing it to become solid.
تَجَمَّدَ (tajammada) concerns solidifying or entering a congealed state.
Modern usage also concerns freezing food, suspending assets or activities, and other administrative uses.
These modern terms must remain distinct from early Arabic evidence.
“Freezing a bank account,” for example, is a modern use, rather than direct evidence of the word’s meaning during the Qur’an’s revelation.
These forms do not occur in the Qur’an.
4. Tearless eyes, ungiving hands, and solid possessions
Jāmid al-ʿayn: an eye that sheds no tears
Lisān al-ʿArab states:
وَرَجُلٌ جَامِدُ الْعَيْنِ: قَلِيلُ الدَّمْعِ.
wa-rajulun jāmidu al-ʿayni qalīlu al-damʿi
Translation: “A man described as jāmid al-ʿayn sheds few tears.”
Arabic also uses ʿaynun jamūd for an eye from which no tears flow.
The subject is not an eye freezing.
Tears are a liquid capable of flowing from an eye.
Early Arabic can use the image of jumūd when tears do not come.
This concerns the branch of interrupted flow.
Few tears alone, however, do not determine emotional condition.
Someone may grieve without crying; another may cry through pain, illness, or excitement.
Jāmid al-ʿayn directly concerns few or absent tears, rather than necessarily being hardhearted, unfeeling, or cruel.
Jamād al-kaff: a miser
Arabic uses jamād al-kaff for a miser.
The image is a hand that does not open in giving.
Lisān al-ʿArab records jāmid as miserly in some usages, especially withholding a right one is obliged to fulfill.
This relates to withholding and absence of flow.
It must not become an actual hand freezing.
Miserliness also differs morally from financial inability.
Someone may have nothing to give without being miserly.
Conversely, someone with sufficient possessions may withhold another’s due.
The critical jamād al-kaff concerns this withholding and closed hand.
Lisān: few tears and withholding a right
Jāmid al-māl and dhāʾibuhu
Lexicons also record jāmidu al-māli wa-dhāʾibuhu.
Explanations include fixed possessions and possessions capable of circulation and consumption.
Another explanation distinguishes nonliving possessions from animals.
Economic jāmid and dhāʾib therefore were not always restricted to one fixed classification.
All these explanations nevertheless contrast two kinds of possessions.
This shows semantic extension, but modern “frozen assets” or “liquid capital” must not be attributed identically to early Arabic without historical examination.
Mujmid: miserly or trustworthy?
مُجْمِد (mujmid) has several lexical meanings.
Some accounts concern a miser or someone reluctant to give.
In early Arabic financial games and drawing lots, however, it also describes someone entrusted with holding the implements or adjudicating participants’ rights.
Some explain the designation through strictness in safeguarding others’ rights.
This differs from blameworthy miserliness.
Someone may withhold personal possessions; another may guard others’ property and rights so strictly that nothing is lost without accounting.
Morally, these behaviors differ.
Mujmid therefore cannot always be translated as either “miser” or “trustworthy custodian” without context.
5. Jumūd and hard ground in early Arabic
Hard, raised terrain
Lisān al-ʿArab records jumud for hard, elevated land.
Ibn Shumayl describes a relatively low, rocky elevation rising above its surroundings.
This differs from water freezing.
Land or rock can have been hard from the outset, without previously being a flowing liquid that froze.
Hardness and solidity are therefore prominent here, rather than necessarily a liquid becoming solid.
This matters for Al-Naml 27:88.
The mountains may be hard in material, but the verse’s main contrast is between considering them stationary and their movement.
Rainless land
Arḍun jamād describes land that has received no rain.
Some accounts include dryness, absence of vegetation, and hard ground.
These features must not become a natural law without evidence.
Land receiving little rain may still have drought-resistant vegetation.
Hard land can also receive sufficient rainfall.
Lexical interpretation must establish the speaker’s intended feature: lack of rain, dryness, or hard ground.
Nāqatun jamād: a camel without milk
Arabic records nāqatun jamād for a camel with no milk or very little.
The usage also extends to some other animals.
The concern is milk failing to emerge.
The description does not specify why.
Reduced milk may relate to nutrition, age, illness, or other conditions.
The word itself does not mean the milk has actually frozen within the animal.
Low milk yield and slow movement also differ. Some lexical accounts propose slowness for this word, but not every lexicographer accepts it.
The clearer, better-attested meaning here is absent or scant milk.
6. Pre-Islamic and early Arabic poetic witnesses
Congealing and miserliness in Al-Mutalammis’s poetry
Al-Mutalammis al-Ḍubaʿī, the recognized pre-Islamic poet, says:
جَمَادِ لَهَا جَمَادِ وَلَا تَقُولَنْ
لَهَا أَبَدًا إِذَا ذُكِرَتْ حَمَادِ
jamādi lahā jamādi wa-lā taqūlan / lahā abadan idhā dhukirat ḥamādi
A rendering close to the words’ usage: “May stagnation be its lot, stagnation; never, when it is mentioned, pronounce praise and thanks upon it.”
Jamādi stands opposite ḥamādi here.
Jamādi concerns arrested good or withheld giving; ḥamādi concerns praise and thanks.
This contrast was recognized in early Arabic.
The referent of lahā and the line’s precise meaning are nevertheless disputed.
Some lexical explanations cite it in criticism of a miserly person or woman.
Examining its connection with Al-Mutalammis’s preceding lines, however, also allows the pronoun to concern the drink mentioned in the poem. That reading concerns its good or effect being arrested.
Sources also transmit wa-lā taqūlan, wa-lā taqūlī, and related variants.
The line must therefore not be treated without explaining the disagreement as certain evidence about a particular person.
For the root study, the clear point is jamādi opposite praise and good, with a sense approaching their flow being withheld or stopped.
Khizānat al-Adab: Al-Mutalammis’s context and textual variants
Jumud: hard high ground in Imruʾ al-Qays’s poetry
A poem attributed to Imruʾ al-Qays states:
كَأَنَّ الصِّوَارَ إِذْ يُجَاهِدْنَ غُدْوَةً
عَلَى جُمُدٍ خَيْلٌ تَجُولُ بِأَجْلَالِ
ka-anna al-ṣiwāra idh yujāhidna ghudwatan / ʿalā jumudin khaylun tajūlu bi-ajlāli
Translation: “The herd of wild cattle, striving at dawn over hard, raised ground, seem horses wheeling in their coverings.”
Al-ṣiwār names a herd of wild cattle.
Jumud names hard, raised land.
The poet compares the animals moving over such ground with horses’ movement.
Jumūd here does not mean the animals are motionless: the line itself describes their movement.
Jumud describes or names the terrain, rather than the animals’ movement.
The text varies. Some sources read ʿalā jumudin; others transmit ʿalā jamzā or further variants.
This matters: accepting jumud makes the line evidence for J M D, whereas the other reading does not.
It must therefore be treated as a recorded witness with variant transmission, rather than an undisputed occurrence in every edition of Imruʾ al-Qays’s poetry.
With this caution, the lexical usage of jumud for hard, elevated land is clear.
Al-Ṣiḥāḥ and Lisān: the jumud reading in Imruʾ al-Qays’s witness
Rainless land in a line attributed to Labīd
Lisān al-ʿArab attributes this line to Labīd:
أَمْرَعَتْ فِي نَدَاهُ إِذْ قَحَطَ الْقَطْـ
ـرُ فَأَمْسَى جَمَادُهَا مَمْطُورَا
amraʿat fī nadāhu idh qaḥaṭa al-qaṭru / fa-amsā jamāduhā mamṭūran
Translation: “It grew fertile through his generosity when rain had ceased; its dry, rainless land became watered.”
Jamāduhā concerns dry, rainless land.
The poet uses the contrast between dryness and rain to praise generosity.
Attribution and textual transmission nevertheless require caution.
Tahdhīb al-Lughah attributes the line, with jahāduhā, to Al-Kumayt; its J M D entry also attributes it to Al-Kumayt. The variation therefore concerns both the word’s reading and the poet’s identity.
Lisān’s transmission has lexical value for jamād, but certain attribution to Labīd and dating require comparing Dīwān editions.
The witness must therefore not be presented without explaining the disagreement as definitely pre-Islamic poetry.
Tahdhīb al-Lughah: jahāduhā and attribution to Al-Kumayt
The witnesses’ place in the study
Al-Mutalammis, Imruʾ al-Qays, and the line attributed to Labīd illustrate three usages: arrested giving and praise, hard elevated ground, and dry rainless land.
Early J M D thus extended beyond freezing water.
None makes Qur’anic jāmidatan mean miserly, rainless, or a rocky hill.
Its Qur’anic meaning follows from the sentence and the contrasts within it.
7. The Qur’anic occurrence: Al-Naml 27:88
وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ
wa-tarā al-jibāla taḥsabuhā jāmidatan wa-hiya tamurru marra al-saḥābi ṣunʿa Allāhi alladhī atqana kulla shayʾin innahu khabīrun bi-mā tafʿalūna
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English:
“And you see the mountains, considering them motionless, while they pass like clouds; the work of The God, who has made everything firm. He is aware of what you do.”
This verse contains J M D’s sole Qur’anic occurrence.
The sentence concerns mountains.
The Qur’an first describes seeing the mountains, then the observer’s impression of them, and then a condition differing from that impression.
It distinguishes what is seen and supposed from what actually happens.
Wa-tarā al-jibāla: seeing the mountains
Tarā belongs to R ʾ Y.
It concerns seeing the mountains here.
Mountains are among the earth’s largest and most familiar natural features.
Ordinarily, people see them in fixed locations. Someone may pass a mountain for years and observe the same general shape and position.
Seeing a condition nevertheless does not alone disclose the whole reality of its motion or stillness.
Another verb follows seeing in the verse and emphasizes this distinction.
Taḥsabuhā: considering
Taḥsabuhā belongs to Ḥ S B.
It concerns considering or supposing something about the mountains.
The verse therefore does not assert that the mountains are necessarily motionless in reality.
It says the observer considers them so.
This distinction is fundamental.
Someone may see something as stationary from one angle or condition while its movement is not apparent through that mode of observation.
Taḥsabu thus places jāmidah within the observer’s impression.
Jāmidatan: motionless and stationary
Jāmidatan is a feminine active participle from J M D.
“Stationary” or “motionless” is appropriate here.
This follows from the direct contrast with the next clause:
“وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ” (wa-hiya tamurru marra al-saḥābi).
If jāmidatan meant only “hard and rocky,” the contrast would be unclear.
Mountains can be hard and rocky while moving.
Their material hardness therefore does not contradict passing like clouds.
Considering the mountains motionless, however, contrasts with their actual movement.
Forqan’s Persian “motionless” is consequently precise and appropriate.
Does jāmidah mean frozen and icy?
Some Arabic usages describe material that has frozen or left its liquid state as jāmid.
Al-Naml 27:88, however, concerns mountains and goes on to describe their movement.
There is no contextual indication that these mountains were previously liquid and then froze through cold.
“Icy” or “frozen” is therefore inappropriate here.
Jāmid also does not mean lifeless in this verse.
Being nonliving and being motionless are distinct.
An inanimate body can move, such as a stone falling from a mountain.
Conversely, a living being may remain still for a time.
Biological “lifeless” must therefore not replace movement-related “motionless.”
Wa-hiya tamurru: movement against the impression of stillness
Tamurru belongs to M R R and concerns passing and moving here.
Hiya refers to the mountains.
Wa-hiya tamurru is grammatically a circumstantial clause, expressing their actual condition against the observer’s impression.
The verse therefore presents two conditions:
First, the mountains are considered motionless.
Second, the same mountains are passing and moving.
This contrast is central to the verse’s image.
Tamurru itself nevertheless supplies no numerical speed, direction, or physical mechanism.
Marra al-saḥābi: clouds passing
Marra here is the verbal noun of marra.
Al-saḥāb names clouds.
The mountains’ passing is therefore compared with clouds passing.
Ordinarily, clouds can move through the sky slowly or rapidly.
Depending on distance, size, and viewing angle, some clouds’ motion may also be difficult to perceive.
The comparison itself nevertheless specifies no fixed speed.
No particular speed for the mountains can therefore be extracted from marra al-saḥābi.
Nor does the comparison mean mountains become cloud material or share every physical characteristic of clouds.
The clear shared feature is passing and movement.
Ṣunʿa Allāhi alladhī atqana kulla shayʾin
The verse continues with God’s work and the firmness of creation.
Ṣunʿ concerns making or what is made.
Atqana belongs to T Q N and concerns making something firm and well constructed.
Atqana must nevertheless not be identified with jamada.
Something can be well and firmly made while moving.
A device, for example, can be precisely and sturdily constructed while functioning through motion.
Firm construction and immobility are therefore distinct.
Jāmidatan concerns presumed stillness, whereas atqana concerns the quality of making and ordering creation.
The words differ in meaning and role.
8. Al-Naml 27:88 in context: when do the mountains move?
The preceding verse: the trumpet being blown
Al-Naml 27:87
وَيَوْمَ يُنفَخُ فِي الصُّورِ فَفَزِعَ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَن فِي الْأَرْضِ إِلَّا مَن شَاءَ اللَّهُ ۚ وَكُلٌّ أَتَوْهُ دَاخِرِينَ
wa-yawma yunfakhu fī al-ṣūri fa-faziʿa man fī al-samāwāti wa-man fī al-arḍi illā man shāʾa Allāhu wa-kullun atawhu dākhirīna
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English:
“And on the day the trumpet is blown, whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on earth becomes terrified, except whom The God wills; and all come before Him humbly.”
This precedes the description of moving mountains.
It concerns the day the trumpet is blown and beings become terrified.
Many early exegetes accordingly understand Al-Naml 27:88 as continuing the same resurrection scene.
On this reading, people consider the mountains stationary on that day, while they move like clouds.
This fits verse 88’s connection with verse 87.
The following verses: accountability and reward
After verse 88, the Qur’an describes good, evil, and human outcomes.
Al-Naml 27:89
مَن جَاءَ بِالْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُ خَيْرٌ مِّنْهَا وَهُم مِّن فَزَعٍ يَوْمَئِذٍ آمِنُونَ
man jāʾa bi-al-ḥasanati fa-lahu khayrun minhā wa-hum min fazaʿin yawmaʾidhin āminūna
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English:
“Whoever brings good has something better than it, and they are safe from terror on that day.”
Al-Naml 27:90
وَمَن جَاءَ بِالسَّيِّئَةِ فَكُبَّتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ فِي النَّارِ هَلْ تُجْزَوْنَ إِلَّا مَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
wa-man jāʾa bi-al-sayyiʾati fa-kubbat wujūhuhum fī al-nāri hal tujzawna illā mā kuntum taʿmalūna
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English:
“And whoever brings evil, their faces are overturned into the fire; are you repaid for anything but what you used to do?”
These likewise concern accountability and human outcomes.
Al-Naml 27:88 thus stands between the trumpet being blown and reward and punishment.
That connection strengthens the resurrection reading.
Jāmidatan itself nevertheless does not mean the Day of Resurrection.
The context determines the movement’s time, rather than J M D.
First reading: mountains moving on the Day of Resurrection
This takes verse 88 as continuing the resurrection account.
The familiar world’s order changes that day; mountains ordinarily appearing stationary begin moving.
This also relates to Al-Ṭūr 52:10, Al-Kahf 18:47, Ṭā Hā 20:105, Ṭā Hā 20:106, Ṭā Hā 20:107, and Al-Nabaʾ 78:20.
These describe mountains moving, scattering, or changing.
Al-Ṭabarī explains jāmidatan through qāʾimatan, “standing,” and considers their movement within that day’s events.
The immediate context provides significant support for this reading.
Al-Ṭabarī: jāmidah as qāʾimah and the movement context
It does not restrict jāmidah’s lexical meaning to “the mountains of Resurrection Day.”
The word denotes motionlessness or being stationary; the network of verses establishes when movement occurs.
Second reading: mountains’ actual movement in the present world
Another reading has also been proposed.
It concerns a present-world reality: people see mountains as stationary, though they actually move.
Their movement can, on this reading, relate to the earth’s movement or natural processes.
Lexically, taḥsabuhā jāmidatan wa-hiya tamurru does not wholly exclude this possibility, because it distinguishes apparent stillness from actual motion.
Ṣunʿa Allāhi alladhī atqana kulla shayʾin can also initially seem consistent with the present world’s created order.
This reading nevertheless faces a significant question: why does the verse stand amid the trumpet and human accountability?
Establishing it as the principal meaning requires explaining how the text moves from resurrection events to present-world natural mountain movement and back to accountability.
Modern knowledge that the earth moves alone cannot resolve that contextual question.
Does the verse directly describe the earth’s rotation or orbit?
The text contains no terms specifying axial rotation, orbit around the sun, tectonic plates, or their speeds.
It explicitly says that mountains are considered motionless while passing like clouds.
Someone may compare this with modern knowledge of the earth’s motion, but that differs from direct translation.
The earth’s actual movement also does not mean mountains always move like clouds relative to their surrounding surface.
A body’s motion in space depends on the reference frame.
A mountain can, for example, be approximately stationary relative to much of its surrounding land while participating with the earth in a larger movement.
This scientific distinction is intelligible, but the verse does not specify the reference frame in detail.
Attributing a particular scientific discovery to it therefore requires an argument beyond jāmidatan’s lexical meaning.
Assessing the readings
Both readings associate jāmidatan with being stationary and motionless.
Their principal difference concerns the movement’s time and kind.
The resurrection reading has clearer immediate contextual support: Al-Naml 27:87 describes the trumpet, while Al-Naml 27:89 and Al-Naml 27:90 concern accountability and human outcomes.
The present-world movement reading is a semantic possibility, but needs further contextual explanation to establish it as the verse’s principal intent.
The root study should therefore not transfer this interpretive disagreement into the word’s meaning.
The lexical meaning here is clear: jāmidatan means “stationary and motionless.”
The circumstances of the mountains’ movement belong to an independent reflection on Al-Naml 27:88.
10. Questions of interpretation and translation
Does jāmid always mean hard?
No.
Hardness is present in some usages of the family.
In Al-Naml 27:88, however, “motionless” is appropriate because it contrasts with tamurru.
“Hard” does not clarify the sentence’s principal contrast.
Can a hard mountain move?
Yes.
A body’s material hardness is compatible with movement.
A hard stone can fall from a mountain.
A large mass of rock can also move through natural causes.
The verse’s principal concern is therefore presumed immobility against actual movement, rather than mountains’ hardness.
Does the verse say mountains are not actually solid?
Two senses of jāmid must be distinguished.
If it means a hard, nonliquid body, mountains moving does not negate that quality.
If it means stationary and motionless, however, the context shows that this impression conflicts with their movement.
Immobility is therefore the intended meaning.
Must the movement be the earth’s orbit around the sun?
The verse does not specify that.
It describes mountains moving like clouds passing.
The precise astronomical or geological movement cannot be extracted from the expression.
An earth-movement reading can be proposed, but establishing it as the principal interpretation requires further contextual and evidential examination.
Does the movement concern only resurrection?
The immediate context strengthens the resurrection reading.
Jāmidah itself nevertheless does not mean resurrection.
The clear lexical meaning must therefore remain distinct from deciding when the event occurs.
The root study establishes “motionless.”
Detailed discussion of the movement’s time belongs in a separate reflection on Al-Naml 27:88.
Does Qur’anic jumūd mean intellectual rigidity?
No.
The verse concerns mountains.
No contextual indication makes jāmidatan mean closed thinking or inability to reconsider.
Modern “intellectual rigidity” does not authorize changing the Qur’anic adjective’s meaning.
Does jāmidah mean lifeless?
No.
Being nonliving and being motionless differ.
Something nonliving can move, while a living being may remain still for a time.
“Motionless” is therefore more precise than “lifeless” in Al-Naml 27:88.
Is firm construction the same as jumūd?
No.
Atqana concerns making something firm and well constructed.
Jāmidatan here concerns presumed immobility.
Something can be well constructed while moving.
Two words occurring in one verse therefore must not be made identical in meaning.
11. Translation proposals for Forqan
For jamada concerning water, “solidified” or “froze” is appropriate.
For blood or similar materials, “set,” “clotted,” or “ceased to flow” can be more precise.
General jumūd can be “congealing,” “cessation of flow,” or, where appropriate, “immobility.”
Depending on its referent, jāmid can be “congealed,” “hard,” “stationary,” or “motionless.”
Jāmid al-ʿayn means “shedding few tears” or “tearless.”
In miserliness, jamād al-kaff concerns a miser or being ungiving.
Arḍun jamād in its familiar usage is “dry, rainless land.”
Sanatun jamād describes a year of little rain or a dry year.
Nāqatun jamād describes a camel without milk or with little milk.
Geographical jumud can be “hard, elevated ground” or “a rocky hill.”
Only jāmidatan, however, occurs in the Qur’an.
Al-Naml 27:88
The expression:
تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً
taḥsabuhā jāmidatan
Appears in Forqan’s current Persian translation as:
“You consider them motionless.”
This rendering is precise.
Taḥsabuhā expresses considering, while jāmidatan, contrasting with movement, means motionless.
“Frozen” could suggest the mountains becoming ice or changing their substance, whereas the verse’s principal contrast concerns movement.
“You consider them stationary” is another defensible equivalent.
The Persian “you consider them motionless” is nevertheless more natural and conveys the relationship with wa-hiya tamurru more clearly.
Forqan’s existing complete Persian translation preserves this distinction, rendered here in English:
“And you see the mountains, considering them motionless, while they pass like clouds; the work of The God, who has made everything firm. He is aware of what you do.”
There is no lexical reason to change it.
Reflection can discuss the movement’s time and manner, but that discussion must not be added to jāmidatan’s direct translation.
12. Conclusion
Arabic J M D concerns congealing, interrupted flow, hardening, and something becoming stationary or motionless.
Ibn Fāris identifies a liquid congealing through cold or another cause as the semantic core.
In familiar usages, water can freeze and blood cease flowing. The family also supplies words concerning rainless land, a dry year, a milkless camel, and a tearless eye.
Human jamād al-kaff describes a miser whose hand does not open in giving or fulfilling a right.
Geographical jumud can name hard, raised terrain.
These meanings are related but distinct. Rainless land is not necessarily frozen, nor a tearless eye necessarily unfeeling.
Early poetry likewise shows this breadth. Al-Mutalammis places jumūd against praise and good; one reading of Imruʾ al-Qays uses jumud for hard, raised ground; the line attributed to Labīd applies jamād to dry, rainless land, though attribution and wording require caution.
The Qur’an uses the root only once, as jāmidatan in Al-Naml 27:88.
Observers consider the mountains motionless, while they pass like clouds.
“Stationary” or “motionless” is therefore appropriate here.
This must remain distinct from their material hardness or freezing. A hard body can move; presumed immobility contrasts with the report of actual movement.
Contextually, Al-Naml 27:88 follows the trumpet and precedes accountability verses. The resurrection reading therefore has stronger surrounding contextual support.
Present-world natural mountain movement remains a lexical possibility, but establishing it as the principal intent requires further contextual evidence.
The root itself specifies neither the movement’s kind nor its time.
Comparison with S K N, TH B T, R K D, and R S W requires recognizing that stillness, firmness, settling, and congealing can be close without sharing every meaning.
The same verse’s itqān also concerns firm construction and must remain distinct from immobility.
For Forqan, the existing Persian “you consider them motionless” is accurate and appropriate.
J M D’s semantic core concerns ceasing to flow and entering a congealed state; Qur’anic jāmidatan, however, concerns considering the mountains stationary and motionless, rather than their freezing or material hardness.
This preserves the Qur’anic image of apparent immobility and actual movement without adding unspecified scientific or interpretive details to the word itself.