The Qur’anic Root J M M
Abundance, accumulation, and renewed strength: from well water and rest to great love of wealth in the Qur’an
Qur’anic and lexical forms
جَمًّا
(jamman)
The sole Qur’anic form; qualifying love
جَمَّ
(jamma)
Became abundant; non-Qur’anic verb
يَجُمُّ / يَجِمُّ
(yajummu / yajimmu)
Two imperfect vocalizations; not Qur’anic
جُمُوم
(jumūm)
Verbal noun of abundance and gathering; not Qur’anic
جَمّ / جَمَم
(jamm / jamam)
Much and abundant; jamman occurs in the Qur’an
جِمَام / جُمَام
(jimām / jumām)
Water and a full measure, with vowel variants; not Qur’anic
جَمَام
(jamām)
Rest and renewed strength; not Qur’anic
أَجَمَّ
(ajamma)
Giving rest; not Qur’anic
اسْتَجَمَّ
(istajamma)
Resting or water collecting; not Qur’anic
جَمُوم
(jamūm)
Plentiful well or enduring horse; not Qur’anic
جُمَّة
(jummah)
Thick hair or collected water; not Qur’anic
جَمِيم
(jamīm)
Vegetation’s growth and density; not Qur’anic
مَجَمّ
(majamm)
A water collection place; not Qur’anic
أَجَمّ / جَمَّاء
(ajamm / jammāʾ)
Spearless or hornless according to context; not Qur’anic
جُمْجُمَة / جَمَاجِم
(jumjumah / jamājim)
Reduplicated quadriliteral forms; not Qur’anic
الْجَمَّاءُ الْغَفِيرُ
(al-jammāʾ al-ghafīr)
An expression for a multitude; not Qur’anic
1. Introducing the root
The three-letter Arabic root J M M concerns abundance, gathering, and accumulation. In its familiar use, جَمّ (jamm) means much or abundant. جَمَّ (jamma) can describe an increase in water or something else, while جِمَام (jimām) in some usages denotes water collected in a well.
This family also includes جُمَّة (jummah), a body of head hair or collected well water; جَمَام (jamām), rest and renewed strength; and جَمُوم (jamūm), a plentiful well or a horse whose running strength is renewed.
These usages have an intelligible relationship. Water collecting again after being drawn from a well increases. Thick hair comprises many strands. An animal recovering strength through rest can continue moving.
This resemblance does not make every derivative identical in meaning. Plentiful water, thick hair, and an animal’s rest are distinct situations, though lexicographical analysis connects them.
Arabic sources also record another branch. أَجَمّ (ajamm) can describe a hornless animal or a person without a spear in battle. Here, the concern is absence of something ordinarily expected, rather than abundance.
The J M M family therefore cannot be reduced without examining its evidence to a single image.
The Qur’an uses this root only once, as جَمًّا (jamman) in Al-Fajr 89:20:
Quranic Arabic Corpus: the sole adjective jamm in Al-Fajr 89:20
وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا
wa-tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jamman
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English: “And you love wealth greatly.”
Jamman here qualifies حُبًّا (ḥubban) and expresses the intensity and abundance of love for wealth.
The verse thus directly describes people’s attachment to wealth, rather than the abundance of their possessions.
Someone may have great wealth without excessive attachment to it. Another person may own little yet love wealth so intensely that others’ rights are disregarded.
In Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20, great love of wealth accompanies disregard for the orphan, failure to encourage feeding the needy, and consuming inheritance.
Understanding this Qur’anic usage therefore requires preserving jamman’s lexical meaning while examining its relationship with the conduct criticized in preceding verses. Brief root meaning: Abundance, gathering, and accumulation; in the Qur’anic usage, love being great and intense.
2. The semantic core in early Arabic
Abundance and gathering
Ibn Fāris writes in Maqāyīs al-Lughah:
الْجِيمُ وَالْمِيمُ فِي الْمُضَاعَفِ لَهُ أَصْلَانِ: الْأَوَّلُ كَثْرَةُ الشَّيْءِ وَاجْتِمَاعُهُ، وَالثَّانِي عَدَمُ السِّلَاحِ.
al-jīmu wa-al-mīmu fī al-muḍāʿafi lahu aṣlāni al-awwalu kathratu al-shayʾi wa-ijtimāʿuhu wa-al-thānī ʿadamu al-silāḥi
Translation: “Jīm and mīm in the doubled root have two principles: first, the abundance and gathering of something; second, the absence of weapons.”
Ibn Fāris: abundance and gathering, and the absence of weapons
J M M is an Arabic doubled root: its second and third consonants are identical.
In forms such as jamm, the two mīms are pronounced with gemination.
Ibn Fāris explains the first branch through abundance and gathering. These concepts are close, but distinct.
Abundance concerns a large amount, whereas gathering concerns parts or individuals coming together in one place.
Things can be plentiful without gathering in one place. Conversely, a small quantity of material may collect in a small vessel.
Gathering and abundance are therefore distinct features that can accompany one another in this family’s usages.
Lisān al-ʿArab states:
الْجَمُّ وَالْجَمَمُ: الْكَثِيرُ مِنْ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ.
al-jammu wa-al-jamamu al-kathīru min kulli shayʾin
Translation: “Jamm and jamam mean an abundant amount of anything.”
This clarifies the adjective’s general range.
It is not restricted to wealth or water. Anything abundant in amount or intensity can, in an appropriate usage, be described with this adjective.
Arabic therefore says:
مَالٌ جَمٌّ (mālun jammun): abundant wealth.
In Al-Fajr 89:20, however, the Qur’an uses ḥubban jamman, rather than mālan jamman.
Abundance is thus attributed to love, rather than directly to the amount of wealth.
Lisān al-ʿArab: jamm and jamam as abundant
Does jamm concern only a large number?
No.
Abundance can concern number, amount, volume, or the intensity of a quality.
Plentiful water, for example, is large in amount.
Thick hair is abundant in the number and density of its strands.
Great love is described in terms of intensity and the extent of attachment.
When jamm qualifies an emotion such as love, it must therefore not become a count of material units of that emotion.
In ḥubban jamman, “great love” or “intense love” is appropriate.
The core of abundance remains, but its kind follows from what jamm describes.
3. Important forms and derivatives
Jamma: becoming abundant
Jamma is a Form I verb.
Arabic sources record its imperfect as both يَجُمُّ (yajummu) and يَجِمُّ (yajimmu).
In quantitative usage, it describes something increasing and accumulating.
جَمَّ الْمَاءُ (jamma al-māʾu), for example, means that water became abundant or collected somewhere.
جَمَّ الْمَالُ (jamma al-mālu) can likewise concern increasing wealth.
Their referents differ, but both concern increase and abundance.
The verbal noun جُمُوم (jumūm) is also recorded for this branch.
Jamm and jamam
Jamm is an adjective meaning much and abundant.
Some sources also record جَمَم (jamam) for abundance.
The Qur’anic form jamman is accusative and indefinite.
It qualifies ḥubban in the verse and expresses love’s amount or intensity.
Jimām and jumām
Lexicons use جِمَام (jimām) and جُمَام (jumām) in some usages for collected water or a vessel’s degree of fullness.
In the context of a well, these concern water collecting.
With a measuring vessel, they concern flour or another material filling it or approaching its rim.
The precise vocalization is not always the same in these contexts; lexicographers disagree over some vowels.
These forms must therefore not all be presented with one fixed vocalization and definition.
Tāj and Asās: water and measuring-vessel vocalization variants
Jamām: rest and renewed strength
Jamām, with fatḥah on jīm, has another familiar usage concerning rest and relief from fatigue.
A person or animal obtains an opportunity to recover strength after work and movement.
Arabic أَجَمَّ نَفْسَهُ (ajamma nafsahu) can mean giving oneself rest.
اسْتَجَمَّ (istajamma) likewise concerns resting or recovering vitality and strength in some usages.
This branch must remain distinct from the direct sense of abundant water, though lexicographers connect gathering and renewed strength.
Jamūm: a plentiful well or strong-running horse
In one usage, jamūm names a well with abundant water.
In another, it describes a horse that retains or regains the strength to continue running after one bout.
The referents differ.
The well has plentiful water; the horse has strength for movement.
Both concern abundance or renewal of a capacity.
Jamūm nevertheless does not always mean fast: speed is irrelevant to the well usage.
Jummah: thick hair and well water
Arabic jummah names a body or mass of head hair.
Some definitions concern hair extending near the ears or shoulders, but lexicographers differ over its precise length.
Another usage concerns water collected in a well or the place where it collects.
One form can thus relate to gathering and abundance in different settings.
Head hair and well water nevertheless differ; context must establish the precise meaning in each sentence.
Jamīm: thick or newly grown vegetation
Arabic جَمِيم (jamīm) describes vegetation whose growth has increased or appeared densely.
Some accounts apply it to vegetation not yet fully grown.
The word can therefore concern vegetation’s stage of growth and density.
It must not become the name of a particular plant species without evidence.
Jummah in human gathering
Another usage names people who gather to request or receive help with blood-money payments.
People’s gathering is prominent here.
This is understood through people gathering in a social situation, rather than being the meaning of blood money itself.
Not every human gathering can nevertheless be called a jummah without evidence.
The usage is lexically recorded and must be understood within those limits.
Ajamm and jammāʾ
Some Arabic usages describe a person without a spear in battle as ajamm.
جَمَّاء (jammāʾ) describes a hornless animal, such as a sheep or goat.
These belong to a branch Ibn Fāris examines separately from abundance and gathering.
Jammāʾ therefore does not establish that an animal has many horns: its recorded sense is the opposite, having no horns.
Jumjumah and jamājim
جُمْجُمَة (jumjumah) names a human skull.
Lexical tradition explains it through containing and gathering the bones or parts of the head.
Some historical usages also apply جَمَاجِم (jamājim) to major tribes encompassing groups and tribal branches.
Jumjumah’s reduplicated structure must nevertheless remain morphologically distinct from simple triliteral jamma.
Its inclusion in this family’s lexical discussion does not prove that every four-consonant form containing jīm and mīm is a direct J M M derivative.
These forms also do not occur in the Qur’an.
4. Well water: a clear image of abundance and gathering
Water returning after being drawn
Well water provides one of the clearest early Arabic usages.
A well from which water has been drawn may refill after a time.
Water returns through underground sources or natural channels and collects within it.
In such circumstances Arabic says:
جَمَّتِ الْبِئْرُ (jammati al-biʾru).
That is, “the well’s water became plentiful and collected again.”
Lisān al-ʿArab records Al-Aṣmaʿī explaining this through water collecting after withdrawal.
This image matters for understanding abundance and gathering.
The water first diminished, then increased in amount.
The verb itself does not explain the scientific cause of replenishment. How underground sources feed the well is a separate matter.
Arabic emphasizes the increase and accumulation of water within it.
Jamm: collected water
In some usages, jamm names water collected in a well.
It may have collected again after withdrawal.
The name moves from abundance and gathering to the collected substance itself.
Such an extension is natural in language.
A word can, for example, identify both gathering and its result in different usages.
This does not make jamm the name of water in every context.
In Al-Fajr 89:20, it qualifies love; the meaning of water is absent.
Majamm: a collection place
Some accounts use مَجَمّ (majamm) for where water collects.
The distinction between material and its location matters here.
Water can gather in a well, pool, or elsewhere.
The water and the place containing it are nevertheless distinct.
Majamm in the water usage emphasizes the collection place.
Filling a measure
Arabic also records this family’s forms for a measuring vessel filling up.
Jimām or related vocalizations can denote an amount filling a measure to or above its rim.
This concerns abundance and accumulation.
It does not mean Qur’anic jamman describes a real vessel overflowing.
The verse concerns love of wealth, rather than measuring flour or water.
A full measure can help explain intensity and abundance, but must not become the Qur’anic expression’s direct meaning.
5. Rest and renewed strength
Jamām: an opportunity to recover strength
Arabic jamām denotes rest and relief from fatigue.
A horse, for example, may tire after prolonged running. Being kept from work and allowed to rest restores its capacity to move.
Jamma or related forms have been used of a horse in this situation.
Ibn Fāris explains this usage through the body being composed and its limbs not moving restlessly.
Renewed strength after rest also relates to this branch; however, strength “gathering again after being spent” is a supplementary image, rather than Ibn Fāris’s exact wording.
This is a lexical and figurative explanation, not a scientific theory of how the body produces energy.
Biologically, recovery involves various processes, while the Arabic word describes relief from fatigue and renewed strength.
Ibn Fāris: rest and the body being composed
Ajimma nafsaka: give yourself rest
Arabic records أَجِمَّ نَفْسَكَ (ajimma nafsaka) as “give yourself rest.”
The person steps back from work or continuous pressure to recover strength.
The rest branch therefore extends beyond animals to humans.
Rest itself does not mean laziness or abandoning responsibility.
Someone may need rest to continue important work.
Another person may evade responsibility and call it rest.
These situations differ in conduct and responsibility, even though both may involve stopping activity.
The lexical meaning of rest alone does not determine whether someone’s motive is right.
Istijmām in Arabic
Modern Arabic also uses اسْتِجْمَام (istijmām) for rest and renewed strength.
This relates to the meaning recorded in early sources.
Its modern use for travel, recreation, or holidays nevertheless does not constitute the whole historical meaning.
Early istijmām could concern a well, animal, or human, and did not always mean recreational travel.
Modern holidays and tourism therefore must not be transferred to Qur’anic jamman.
6. Hair, vegetation, and gathering
Jummah: a mass of head hair
Head hair comprises many strands.
Arabic jummah names a body of hair growing on the head and, in some usages, extending near the ears or shoulders.
Lexicons differ over its precise length.
Some consider jummah longer than wafrah and limmah, while others establish different boundaries.
Hair-length terminology therefore is not restricted to one fixed measure across all sources.
The general sense of jummah nevertheless concerns a mass or body of head hair.
This fits abundance and gathering, but jummah itself does not occur in the Qur’an.
Jamīm: vegetation’s growth and density
Arabic jamīm describes vegetation that has grown and covered an area, or appeared as a body of plants.
Some accounts concern vegetation not yet fully tall.
Jamīm therefore should not be restricted to either “tall vegetation” or “new vegetation.”
Each witness must establish the growth stage and description intended.
Al-jammāʾ al-ghafīr: a large multitude
Arabic records الْجَمَّاءُ الْغَفِيرُ (al-jammāʾ al-ghafīr) for a large group of people.
The subject here is a human population, rather than well water or hair.
The shared feature is large number and gathering.
This expression does not establish that every large group is right in opinion or conduct.
Numerical abundance and rightness are distinct matters.
The Qur’an likewise does not present followers’ large numbers alone as the ultimate criterion for judging truth and falsehood.
Jummah in blood-money matters
Ibn Fāris records jummah for people gathering to request or receive assistance with blood-money payments.
The concern here is human gathering.
The group may have assembled over a shared financial responsibility.
Jummah itself, however, does not mean blood money or retaliation; it names the assembled group.
For the J M M study, this is evidence of the gathering branch.
7. A separate branch: lacking horns or weapons
Ajamm: without a spear
Ibn Fāris identifies a second principle, which he calls ʿadamu al-silāḥ, “the absence of weapons.”
One usage is رَجُلٌ أَجَمّ (rajulun ajamm), someone without a spear in battle.
This concerns neither abundance nor gathering.
It concerns lacking an implement that might be expected in battle.
The person may lack a spear for various reasons.
The word itself does not determine whether he is brave, cowardly, incapable, or entirely defenseless.
It describes only the absence of a particular weapon.
Shātun jammāʾ: a hornless animal
Arabic jammāʾ describes a sheep or other animal without horns.
The contrast with a horned animal is clear.
Lacking horns does not mean lacking every defensive capacity.
The description itself also does not explain why the animal is hornless.
This may be a natural characteristic or result from another circumstance.
The clear lexical sense is having no horns.
Is this branch derived from abundance?
There is no clear evidence connecting hornlessness with abundance.
Ibn Fāris accordingly identifies two separate principles for the family.
Historical linguistic research might offer a theory of a more distant relationship, but the present study should not turn lacking horns into a form of abundance through imagined connections.
An Arabic root can therefore have multiple branches; a researcher must not erase actual differences to maintain apparent unity.
Jammāʾ and jamm
Jamm means much and abundant.
Jammāʾ in the animal usage means hornless.
They share a root but belong to different semantic branches.
Jamman in Al-Fajr 89:20 therefore cannot be explained through hornlessness or lacking weapons.
Its Qur’anic usage clearly belongs to abundance and intensity.
8. Early poetic witnesses
Plentiful water in Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā’s poetry
Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā, the recognized pre-Islamic poet, says in one line:
فَلَمَّا وَرَدْنَ الْمَاءَ زُرْقًا جِمَامُهُ
وَضَعْنَ عِصِيَّ الْحَاضِرِ الْمُتَخَيِّمِ
fa-lammā waradna al-māʾa zurqan jimāmuhu / waḍaʿna ʿiṣiyya al-ḥāḍiri al-mutakhayyimi
Translation: “When they reached the water, its collected pools clear and blue, they laid down their staffs and settled there.”
Jimāmuhu here concerns collected water.
Zurqan describes the water’s color and appearance.
Early commentaries associate this image with clear water collected somewhere undisturbed.
Al-Ṭabarī also cites this line to explain ḥubban jamman in Al-Fajr 89:20.
The witness matters particularly because it shows collected water and abundance in pre-Islamic poetry.
This does not mean love literally collects like water in a vessel in the Qur’anic verse.
The poem shows a physical usage; the Qur’an applies the same field of abundance to love’s intensity.
Al-Ṭabarī: Zuhayr’s witness for great love
Renewed strength in Imruʾ al-Qays’s poetry
Lisān al-ʿArab transmits the following line from Imruʾ al-Qays. Its text reads al-muḥayyaḍ; Al-Maʿānī al-Kabīr and the transmitted Dīwān read al-makhīḍ. The latter is adopted here, consistent with the explanation of water being stirred with buckets.
يَجِمُّ عَلَى السَّاقَيْنِ بَعْدَ كَلَالِهِ
جُمُومَ عُيُونِ الْحِسْيِ بَعْدَ الْمَخِيضِ
yajimmu ʿalā al-sāqayni baʿda kalālihi / jumūma ʿuyūni al-ḥisyi baʿda al-makhīḍi
Translation: “After tiring, it recovers strength under the urging of the rider’s legs, like shallow springs replenishing after being stirred with buckets and drawn from.”
The images of renewed strength and replenished water occur together.
Kalāl concerns fatigue and weariness.
Jumūm in the water image concerns water returning and collecting again.
Ibn Qutaybah explains ʿalā al-sāqayn through pressing and urging the horse with the rider’s legs; the poet uses replenished well water to describe the horse recovering strength.
The relationship between rest, renewed strength, and collected water was therefore intelligible in early Arabic.
This does not make jamām mean rapid movement in every usage.
For humans or animals, rest may restore strength, but the word itself specifies no precise speed or muscular capacity.
Ibn Qutaybah: the rider’s legs and the reading al-makhīḍ
Jamūm al-shadd in Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab’s poetry
Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab, a poet who lived through the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods, describes a horse:
جَمُومُ الشَّدِّ شَائِلَةُ الذُّنَابَى
تَخَالُ بَيَاضَ غُرَّتِهَا سِرَاجَا
jamūmu al-shaddi shāʾilatu al-dhunābā / takhālu bayāḍa ghurratihā sirājan
Translation: “Strong and enduring in running, holding her tail high, the whiteness of her forehead seems a lamp.”
Jamūmu al-shaddi concerns abundant, continuing strength for running.
Lexical explanations describe a horse capable of another bout of running after the first.
This shows renewed strength and abundant capacity.
The composition date nevertheless requires caution.
Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab lived across both periods; there is no certain evidence here for this line’s precise date.
It can therefore be treated as early Arabic evidence close to the revelation period, without asserting that the particular line necessarily predates Islam.
Jamharat al-Lughah: Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab’s witness
What the poetic witnesses establish
Zuhayr, Imruʾ al-Qays, and Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab present three settings.
Zuhayr describes plentiful, collected water.
Imruʾ al-Qays compares recovering strength with replenished water.
Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab emphasizes a horse’s abundant capacity to continue running.
These show J M M’s relationship with abundance, gathering, and recovering strength before the Qur’an and in language close to the revelation period.
None establishes that jamman in Al-Fajr 89:20 means water, horse, or rest.
The Qur’anic adjective qualifies love; abundance or intensity of love is appropriate.
9. The Qur’anic occurrence: Al-Fajr 89:20
وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا
wa-tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jamman
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English: “And you love wealth greatly.”
This verse contains the root J M M’s sole Qur’anic occurrence.
The sentence is brief, but its place among the surrounding verses matters greatly for understanding the Qur’an’s intent.
The construction ḥubban jamman
تُحِبُّونَ (tuḥibbūna) belongs to Ḥ B B and means “you love.”
الْمَالَ (al-māla) is the verb’s object: what is loved.
Ḥubban is an accusative verbal noun from the verb’s own family, functioning grammatically as a cognate accusative.
Jamman is an adjective qualifying ḥubban.
The construction thus says that you love wealth, with a great love.
Jamman does not directly qualify al-māla.
If only abundant wealth were intended, the sentence could use an adjective describing wealth itself.
The Qur’an, however, uses ḥubban jamman.
Love and attachment’s intensity is therefore the principal subject of the adjective.
This matters because abundant wealth and abundant love of wealth are distinct concepts.
Someone may be wealthy yet use that wealth to assist the needy and fulfill responsibilities.
Someone with few possessions may, conversely, love wealth so intensely that others’ rights are disregarded to acquire or retain it.
Jamman itself does not determine the person’s amount of wealth.
Does jamman mean great or intense love?
Lexicons define jamm as much and abundant.
Early explanations of the verse also use kathīran, “greatly,” and shadīdan, “intensely.”
These are close in the context of love.
“Great” expresses the emotion’s intensity and abundance.
“Intense” emphasizes its strength and dominance.
Both can therefore explain ḥubban jamman appropriately.
The basic rendering “you love greatly,” however, is natural and closer to the adjective’s general meaning.
Jamman alone does not establish that this love necessarily reaches a particular stage of psychological illness, addiction, or complete inability to decide.
Those judgments exceed the word’s lexical meaning.
The criticism of conduct follows from the whole context.
10. Al-Fajr 89:15, Al-Fajr 89:16, Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20: love of wealth amid trial and responsibility
Wealth and poverty: two conditions of trial
Al-Fajr 89:15 states:
فَأَمَّا الْإِنسَانُ إِذَا مَا ابْتَلَاهُ رَبُّهُ فَأَكْرَمَهُ وَنَعَّمَهُ فَيَقُولُ رَبِّي أَكْرَمَنِ
fa-ammā al-insānu idhā mā ibtalāhu rabbuhu fa-akramahu wa-naʿʿamahu fa-yaqūlu rabbī akramani
Translation: “As for the human, when his Lord tests him, honors him, and grants him ease, he says: My Lord has honored me.”
The next verse states:
وَأَمَّا إِذَا مَا ابْتَلَاهُ فَقَدَرَ عَلَيْهِ رِزْقَهُ فَيَقُولُ رَبِّي أَهَانَنِ
wa-ammā idhā mā ibtalāhu fa-qadara ʿalayhi rizqahu fa-yaqūlu rabbī ahānani
Translation: “But when He tests him and restricts his provision, he says: My Lord has humiliated me.”
Both verses contain the verb ibtalā, “tested.”
Both prosperity and restricted provision are thus presented as trials.
The human nevertheless regards prosperity as evidence of being honored and restricted provision as humiliation.
The next verse rejects that understanding with kallā.
Before describing great love of wealth, the Qur’an thus presents and criticizes a mistaken criterion of human worth: measuring standing solely by possessions and comfort.
Love of wealth in verse 20 therefore occurs where wealth’s misplaced role in judging oneself and others is also criticized.
Disregard for the orphan
Al-Fajr 89:17
كَلَّا ۖ بَل لَّا تُكْرِمُونَ الْيَتِيمَ
kallā bal lā tukrimūna al-yatīma
Translation: “It is not so; rather, you do not honor the orphan.”
This follows rejection of the mistaken understanding of prosperity and restricted provision.
Instead of measuring human worth by wealth, the Qur’an addresses conduct disregarding a vulnerable person’s rights and dignity.
Wealth here concerns conduct toward others as well as a person’s amount of possessions.
Tukrimūna nevertheless belongs to K R M; its meaning must not be transferred to J M M.
Their relationship follows from the verses’ context.
Failing to encourage feeding the needy
Al-Fajr 89:18
وَلَا تَحَاضُّونَ عَلَىٰ طَعَامِ الْمِسْكِينِ
wa-lā taḥāḍḍūna ʿalā ṭaʿāmi al-miskīni
Translation: “And you do not encourage one another to feed the needy.”
This continues the discussion of social responsibility.
The concern includes encouraging others to assist the needy, rather than only personally providing food.
Taḥāḍḍūna belongs to another root and concerns mutual urging and encouragement.
The responsibility therefore extends beyond individual conduct to relations among people.
Great love of wealth can here relate to reluctance to give or attend to those in need.
Verse 18 nevertheless does not use J M M; encouragement must not become part of its definition.
Consuming inheritance
Al-Fajr 89:19
وَتَأْكُلُونَ التُّرَاثَ أَكْلًا لَّمًّا
wa-taʾkulūna al-turātha aklan lamman
Translation: “And you consume inheritance altogether.”
Lamman in this verse belongs to L M M.
It resembles jamman in the next verse in sound and outward structure, but their roots differ.
Aklan lamman, in consuming inheritance, concerns sweeping consumption and collecting it for oneself.
Early explanations discuss mixing one’s own share with others’ rights and appropriating the inheritance.
This fits the critical context, but the expression’s direct meaning must remain distinct from explanation of its instances.
The concern is how inheritance is treated, rather than merely possessing abundant wealth.
The following verse consequently places great love of wealth beside conduct that can violate others’ rights.
Al-Ṭabarī: consuming inheritance and others’ rights
Great love of wealth
Al-Fajr 89:20
وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا
wa-tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jamman
Existing Persian Forqan translation, rendered here in English: “And you love wealth greatly.”
This follows three social and economic criticisms: failing to honor the orphan, failing to encourage feeding the needy, and sweeping consumption of inheritance.
Intense love of wealth here is more than a private feeling disconnected from conduct.
It occurs beside a set of criticized actions.
The criticism can therefore be understood as concerning attachment that places wealth above human rights and responsibilities.
That conclusion, however, follows from the verses together, rather than jamman alone.
The adjective itself denotes abundance and intensity.
Context shows this love accompanying disregard for others’ rights and mistaken judgments about human worth in the situation described.
Does the Qur’an criticize all love of wealth?
People need material resources for life, food, housing, family, and many responsibilities.
Possessing wealth, earning a livelihood, and using blessings properly are not inherently the criticized conduct in Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20.
Other verses discuss work, seeking provision, legitimate trade, and benefiting from divine blessings, including Al-Baqarah 2:198, Al-Nisāʾ 4:29, and Al-Jumuʿah 62:10.
Al-Tawbah 9:24, conversely, describes wealth and other attachments being preferred to loyalty to God and His way.
This network of verses shows the distinction between possessing wealth and the nature of one’s relationship with it.
Al-Fajr directly describes love’s intensity within a context of wrongful conduct.
It does not establish that every wealthy person is blameworthy or every poor person free from wrongful attachment to wealth.
The more significant criterion is conduct toward rights and responsibilities.
Does love of wealth displace other values?
People may love family, friends, knowledge, social standing, and possessions.
Love itself is not always wrong.
When something loved causes someone to disregard another’s rights, abandon justice, or neglect a clear responsibility, however, love becomes an ethical issue.
Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20 present concrete examples.
The orphan is not honored.
The needy lack assistance and social encouragement.
Inheritance is consumed in a blameworthy way.
And wealth is loved greatly.
These verses thus go beyond an abstract recommendation to love wealth less: they confront the reader with possessions, others’ rights, and actual human conduct.
The entire ethical analysis must nevertheless not become jamman’s lexical meaning.
Jamman continues to mean much and abundant.
12. Questions of interpretation and translation
Does jamman mean abundant wealth?
No: in Al-Fajr 89:20, jamman qualifies ḥubban.
The verse therefore concerns great love of wealth.
Intense love may prompt attempts to accumulate possessions, but that is a possible behavioral result, rather than the sentence’s direct meaning.
Does jamman necessarily mean forbidden love?
Jamman itself expresses only abundance and intensity.
Judgment about wrongful conduct follows from context.
Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20 place great love of wealth beside criticized conduct toward the orphan, needy, and inheritance.
Here, love of wealth therefore relates to others’ rights and social responsibility.
This does not make every Arabic usage of jamm negative.
Does the verse criticize every wealthy person?
That conclusion does not follow from the verse itself.
Ḥubban jamman concerns love’s intensity, rather than the amount possessed.
Someone may own abundant wealth and use it properly.
Someone with little may, conversely, violate others’ rights to obtain wealth.
The amount possessed and the quality of one’s relationship with it are therefore distinct.
Does jamm always mean gathering?
No.
Gathering and abundance are connected in some usages.
In Al-Fajr 89:20, however, “greatly” is appropriate.
Rendering the verse as “you love wealth by gathering it” changes its construction and meaning.
Jamman qualifies love; translation must preserve that role.
Is restful jamām the same as great love?
No.
They belong to one family but differ in referent and usage.
One concerns abundance and intensity.
The other concerns relief from fatigue and renewed strength.
A shared root must not merge these meanings in one expression.
Does ajamm mean much and abundant?
Some descriptive usages of ajamm can concern abundance.
In the separate recorded branch, however, ajamm describes someone without a spear, while jammāʾ describes a hornless animal.
A form’s appearance therefore cannot determine its meaning without context.
This is one reason every derivative requires separate examination.
Does jumjumah belong to this root?
Lexicons explain jumjumah in connection with the gathering of parts of the head.
Its four-consonant, reduplicated structure nevertheless requires separate examination.
Without historical evidence, all forms containing jīm and mīm cannot be treated as direct, simple derivatives of jamma.
This word also does not occur in the Qur’an.
13. Translation proposals for Forqan
For jamm in the abundance sense, the principal equivalent is “much” or “abundant.”
In some contexts, “dense” or “plentiful” can also be appropriate.
Mālun jammun is “abundant wealth.”
Māʾun jammun likewise means “plentiful water.”
In Al-Fajr 89:20, however, ḥubban jamman means “great love” or “intense love.”
Forqan’s complete Persian translation of the verse is:
وَتُحِبُّونَ الْمَالَ حُبًّا جَمًّا
wa-tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jamman
“And you love wealth greatly.”
This translation is accurate and natural and needs no change.
Jamman is rendered as “greatly,” conveying love’s intensity.
Analysis can add that this love occurs amid disregard for orphans’ and needy people’s rights and criticized conduct toward inheritance.
That explanation nevertheless should not enter the verse’s translation as “you love wealth so much that you consume people’s rights.” Such a sentence may express a contextual relationship, but is not verse 20’s verbal equivalent.
Equivalents for non-Qur’anic derivatives depend on form and context.
Jamma al-māʾu means “the water became abundant and collected.”
Jammati al-biʾru can be “the well’s water collected again.”
Jimām in the well usage denotes collected water.
Jamām in the rest usage means “rest” or “renewed strength.”
Ajamma nafsahu means “he gave himself rest.”
Human istajamma can mean “rested” or “recovered strength.”
Jummah in the hair context denotes “thick hair” or “a body of head hair.”
Plant-related jamīm concerns vegetation’s growth or density.
Jamūm can be “plentiful in water” for a well and “enduring in running” for a horse.
Military ajamm means “without a spear”; shātun jammāʾ means “a hornless sheep.”
These meanings must not be transferred without contextual evidence to Qur’anic jamman.
14. Conclusion
Arabic J M M’s principal branch concerns abundance, gathering, and accumulation.
Ibn Fāris identifies two principles: abundance and gathering; and lacking weapons or defensive implements, as with a spearless person or hornless animal.
In the abundance branch, jamm denotes a large amount.
Jamma can describe increasing water or wealth.
Jimām in some usages concerns collected water or a vessel’s fullness.
Jummah is used for a mass of head hair or collected well water; jamīm concerns vegetation’s growth and density.
Another related usage, jamām, denotes rest and renewed strength.
The poetic witnesses from Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā, Imruʾ al-Qays, and Al-Nimr ibn Tawlab show that plentiful water and recovered strength were established early Arabic images.
These usages nevertheless must not convert one derivative’s meaning into another’s.
The Qur’an uses this root only once, as jamman in Al-Fajr 89:20.
In wa-tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jamman, jamman qualifies ḥubban.
The Qur’an thus directly describes love of wealth’s intensity, rather than abundant wealth.
This distinction is fundamental.
Someone may have abundant possessions and respect others’ rights; someone with little may love wealth so intensely that another’s rights are disregarded.
In Al-Fajr 89:15, Al-Fajr 89:16, Al-Fajr 89:17, Al-Fajr 89:18, Al-Fajr 89:19, and Al-Fajr 89:20, this love accompanies mistaken judgments of personal standing through wealth, failure to honor the orphan, failure to encourage feeding the needy, and consuming inheritance.
The criticism therefore addresses a relationship with wealth that harms conduct and responsibility toward others.
That ethical conclusion follows from the whole context, rather than jamm itself meaning greed, injustice, or consuming others’ rights.
Compared with J M ʿ, gathering and being abundant must remain distinct.
Lamman in Al-Fajr 89:19 and jamman in Al-Fajr 89:20 likewise have different roots despite their similar sound, expressing distinct aspects: how inheritance is consumed and the intensity of love for wealth.
For Forqan, the existing Persian “And you love wealth greatly” is accurate and appropriate.
Jamman here directly means much and abundant, describing love’s intensity rather than the amount of possessions.
Preserving this distinction allows criticism of excessive love of wealth to be understood through the whole context, without automatically condemning wealth or turning a lexical adjective into an independent ethical ruling.